PAS-C01 Technology Practice Question
A company runs SAP on AWS and is experiencing high latency for database queries after moving the SAP HANA database to a larger instance type. CloudWatch metrics show that the EBS volume queue length is consistently high. What is the most likely cause of the latency?
⚠ Common exam trap
Watch out — candidates often confuse a high EBS queue length with network or CPU bottlenecks, but the queue length is a direct indicator of I/O throttling due to insufficient provisioned IOPS, not resource saturation elsewhere.
Answer choices
Why each option matters
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
✓
The EBS volume does not have enough provisioned IOPS.
A consistently high EBS volume queue length indicates that the volume is receiving more I/O requests than it can process, causing requests to queue up. Since the SAP HANA database was moved to a larger instance type, the workload likely demands more IOPS than the EBS volume is provisioned for, leading to throttling and increased latency. Option C correctly identifies that insufficient provisioned IOPS is the most likely cause.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
The instance's network bandwidth is saturated.
Why it's wrong here
Network bandwidth saturation would show other symptoms like packet loss, not specifically high queue length.
- ✗
The instance's CPU is under-provisioned.
Why it's wrong here
CPU under-provisioning would show high CPU utilization, not necessarily high queue length.
- ✓
The EBS volume does not have enough provisioned IOPS.
Why this is correct
Insufficient IOPS leads to requests queuing.
- ✗
The EBS volume is not encrypted.
Why it's wrong here
Encryption does not affect queue length.
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JA
Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
This PAS-C01 practice question is part of Courseiva's free Amazon Web Services certification practice question bank. Courseiva provides original exam-style practice questions with explanations, topic-based practice, mock exams, readiness tracking, and study analytics to help learners prepare for the PAS-C01 exam.