PAS-C01 Operations and Maintenance Practice Question
A company runs SAP on AWS and needs to implement a disaster recovery (DR) strategy with a Recovery Point Objective (RPO) of 15 minutes and Recovery Time Objective (RTO) of 2 hours. The primary site is in us-east-1 and the DR site in us-west-2. The SAP HANA database is 5 TB. Which approach meets these requirements cost-effectively?
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
✓
Configure HANA System Replication in async mode between the primary and DR instances over AWS Direct Connect.
(HANA System Replication with async mode over AWS Direct Connect) is correct because it enables continuous data replication with a low RPO (asynchronous replication can be sub-minute), and the RTO can be within 2 hours by failing over to the DR instance. It is cost-effective as it uses existing HANA licenses and compute/storage resources. Option A (S3 cross-region replication of backups) may achieve the RPO, but restoring from backups typically exceeds the 2-hour RTO. Option B (AWS DMS) is not designed for SAP HANA replication; it is intended for homogeneous or heterogeneous database migrations. Option C (EBS snapshots every 15 minutes) may not consistently meet the RPO due to snapshot creation time and the time required to copy snapshots across regions, and RTO is high because the volume must be created and attached before recovery.
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 Amazon S3 cross-region replication to copy database backups every 15 minutes.
Why it's wrong here
Restoring from S3 would take longer than 2 hours.
- ✗
Use AWS Database Migration Service (DMS) for ongoing replication to a HANA instance in us-west-2.
Why it's wrong here
DMS is not optimized for HANA replication.
- ✗
Take EBS snapshots of the data volume every 15 minutes and copy them to us-west-2.
Why it's wrong here
Snapshots every 15 minutes may not be feasible and restore time is high.
- ✓
Configure HANA System Replication in async mode between the primary and DR instances over AWS Direct Connect.
Why this is correct
Async replication meets RPO and RTO with fast takeover.
Visual reference
Quick reference
AWS S3 Storage Class Comparison
| Storage Class | Min Duration | Retrieval | Use Case |
|---|---|---|---|
| S3 Standard | None | Immediate | Frequently accessed data |
| S3 Standard-IA | 30 days | Immediate | Infrequent access, rapid retrieval |
| S3 One Zone-IA | 30 days | Immediate | Non-critical infrequent data |
| S3 Intelligent-Tiering | None | Immediate–hours | Unknown or changing access patterns |
| S3 Glacier Instant | 90 days | Milliseconds | Archive with instant retrieval |
| S3 Glacier Flexible | 90 days | Minutes–hours | Archive, flexible retrieval |
| S3 Glacier Deep Archive | 180 days | Hours | Long-term compliance archive |
Go deeper
Related to this question
About these practice questions
Courseiva writes every PAS-C01 question from scratch — 1,616 in total, each with an explanation and a wrong-answer breakdown. None are copied from real exams or dumps. Learn why practice questions differ from exam dumps →
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.