PAS-C01 Operations and Maintenance Practice Question
A company runs SAP on AWS and needs to automate the patching of SAP application servers. The solution should apply patches during a defined maintenance window and ensure high availability. What is the most efficient approach?
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
✓
Use AWS Systems Manager Patch Manager with a maintenance window.
AWS Systems Manager Patch Manager integrates with maintenance windows to automate patching during defined times. It can target instances in an Auto Scaling group, ensuring high availability by patching a subset at a time. This is the most efficient and automated approach. Option B (CloudFormation update) is more suited for infrastructure updates, not routine patching. Option C (Lambda invoking Run Command sequentially) adds complexity without leveraging Patch Manager's built-in scheduling. Option D (manual SSH) is not automated.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✓
Use AWS Systems Manager Patch Manager with a maintenance window.
Why this is correct
Patch Manager automates patching with scheduled maintenance windows and can target Auto Scaling groups for HA.
- ✗
Update the CloudFormation stack to replace instances with new AMIs.
Why it's wrong here
Replacing instances via CloudFormation stack updates with new AMIs disrupts running SAP application servers during the maintenance window, as it terminates existing instances rather than performing in-place patching. This violates the high-availability requirement because SAP application servers must remain online or be patched without full replacement. It is tempting because CloudFormation is a standard infrastructure-as-code tool for consistent AMI-based deployments, and this approach would be correct for stateless, horizontally scaled environments where instance replacement is acceptable.
- ✗
Use AWS Lambda to invoke Run Command on each instance sequentially.
Why it's wrong here
While possible, this approach lacks maintenance window scheduling and is less efficient.
- ✗
Manually connect to each instance via SSH and apply patches.
Why it's wrong here
Manual approach is not automated and prone to errors.
Quick reference
Cloud Service Model Comparison
| Model | You Manage | Provider Manages | Examples |
|---|---|---|---|
| IaaS | OS, runtime, apps, data | Hardware, hypervisor, networking | EC2, Azure VMs, GCP Compute Engine |
| PaaS | Apps and data | OS, runtime, middleware, hardware | Elastic Beanstalk, Azure App Service |
| SaaS | Data and settings only | Everything else | Microsoft 365, Salesforce, Workday |
| FaaS / Serverless | Function code only | Infra, scaling, runtime | Lambda, Azure Functions, Cloud Run |
| CaaS | Containers and apps | Kubernetes, OS, hardware | EKS, AKS, GKE |
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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.