PAS-C01 Operations and Maintenance Practice Question
A company runs SAP on AWS and uses CloudWatch for monitoring. They want to set up an alarm that notifies the operations team when the CPU utilization of their SAP application server exceeds 90% for 5 consecutive minutes. Which THREE components are required to achieve this? (Select THREE.)
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
✓
A CloudWatch alarm configured with the metric and threshold.
Options B, C, and E are correct. Option B: A CloudWatch alarm is required to define the threshold and trigger when CPU utilization exceeds 90% for 5 consecutive minutes. Option C: An Amazon SNS topic is needed to send notifications to the operations team. Option E: A CloudWatch metric for CPU utilization is the data source for the alarm. Option A is incorrect because CloudTrail logs API calls, not needed for this monitoring setup. Option D is incorrect because Lambda is not required; the alarm can directly trigger SNS.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
AWS CloudTrail to log the alarm actions.
Why it's wrong here
CloudTrail is for API auditing, not for alarm setup.
- ✓
A CloudWatch alarm configured with the metric and threshold.
Why this is correct
The alarm triggers when the threshold is breached.
- ✓
An Amazon SNS topic to send the notification.
Why this is correct
SNS delivers the alarm notification.
- ✗
An AWS Lambda function to process the alarm.
Why it's wrong here
Lambda is not required for simple notification.
- ✓
A CloudWatch metric for CPU utilization.
Why this is correct
The alarm monitors a metric.
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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Same concept, more angles
7 more ways this is tested on PAS-C01
These questions test the same concept from different angles. Work through them to make sure you can recognise it however the exam phrases it.
Variation 1. An SAP administrator needs to monitor the CPU utilization of an EC2 instance running SAP HANA. Which AWS service should be used to set an alarm when CPU utilization exceeds 90% for 5 minutes?
easy- A.AWS CloudTrail
- B.AWS Trusted Advisor
- C.AWS Config
- ✓ D.Amazon CloudWatch
Why D: Amazon CloudWatch (Option D) is the correct answer because it is the AWS monitoring service that can create alarms on EC2 metrics such as CPUUtilization. When the CPU utilization exceeds a threshold (e.g., 90%) for a specified duration (e.g., 5 minutes), CloudWatch can trigger an alarm and notify via SNS. Option A (AWS CloudTrail) is incorrect because it records API activity, not performance metrics. Option B (AWS Trusted Advisor) is incorrect because it provides best practice recommendations, not real-time monitoring or alarms. Option C (AWS Config) is incorrect because it tracks resource configuration changes, not operational metrics.
Variation 2. An SAP system administrator needs to monitor the CPU utilization of an EC2 instance running SAP NetWeaver. The administrator wants to receive an alert when the CPU utilization exceeds 80% for 5 consecutive minutes. Which AWS service should be used to create this alarm?
easy- A.AWS CloudTrail
- B.AWS Config
- C.Amazon CloudWatch Logs
- ✓ D.Amazon CloudWatch Alarms
Why D: Amazon CloudWatch Alarms are the correct service for monitoring EC2 instance CPU utilization and triggering alerts based on thresholds. In this scenario, the administrator needs to create an alarm that triggers when CPU utilization exceeds 80% for 5 consecutive minutes. CloudWatch Alarms can evaluate metric data against specified thresholds and perform actions such as sending notifications via SNS. Option D is correct. Option A (AWS CloudTrail) is for auditing API activity, not metric monitoring. Option B (AWS Config) is for resource configuration compliance. Option C (Amazon CloudWatch Logs) is for storing and monitoring log files, not for setting metric-based alarms.
Variation 3. A company needs to monitor the CPU utilization of SAP EC2 instances and send an alert if it exceeds 90% for 5 consecutive minutes. Which AWS service should be used?
easy- A.AWS Config
- ✓ B.Amazon CloudWatch Alarms
- C.AWS Trusted Advisor
- D.AWS CloudTrail
Why B: Amazon CloudWatch Alarms (option B) monitor metrics like CPU utilization and can trigger actions such as sending alerts when a threshold is exceeded for a specified duration. Option A (AWS Config) is used for configuration compliance and inventory. Option C (AWS Trusted Advisor) provides best-practice checks. Option D (AWS CloudTrail) is for API auditing and governance.
Variation 4. A company is running SAP on AWS and wants to send alerts when the CPU utilization of an EC2 instance exceeds 90% for 5 minutes. Which AWS service should be used to create this alarm?
easy- A.AWS Lambda
- B.AWS Config
- C.Amazon Simple Notification Service (SNS)
- ✓ D.Amazon CloudWatch Alarms
Why D: Amazon CloudWatch Alarms (Option D) are the correct AWS service for creating alarms based on metrics such as CPU utilization. They monitor CloudWatch metrics and perform actions (e.g., send notifications via SNS) when thresholds are breached. Option A (AWS Lambda) can be a target action for an alarm but is not the alarm service itself. Option B (AWS Config) evaluates resource configurations against rules, not metric thresholds. Option C (Amazon SNS) is a notification service that can be triggered by CloudWatch Alarms but does not create the alarm.
Variation 5. An AWS administrator needs to monitor the CPU utilization of an EC2 instance running SAP NetWeaver. The instance type is r5.2xlarge. Which CloudWatch metric should the administrator use to track the CPU usage of the instance?
medium- A.MemoryUtilization
- ✓ B.CPUUtilization
- C.NetworkIn
- D.DiskReadOps
Why B: (CPUUtilization). CPUUtilization is a standard CloudWatch metric for EC2 instances that measures the percentage of allocated EC2 compute units that are currently in use. It is suitable for monitoring CPU usage of an EC2 instance running SAP NetWeaver. Option A (MemoryUtilization) is incorrect because memory utilization is not a default CloudWatch metric; it requires a custom agent. Option C (NetworkIn) measures network traffic, not CPU. Option D (DiskReadOps) measures disk I/O operations.
Variation 6. An SAP system administrator needs to monitor the CPU and memory utilization of SAP EC2 instances. Which TWO AWS services can be used to collect and visualize these metrics? (Choose TWO.)
medium- A.AWS Trusted Advisor
- ✓ B.Amazon CloudWatch
- C.AWS CloudTrail
- ✓ D.Amazon Managed Service for Prometheus
- E.AWS Config
Why B: The correct answers are B (Amazon CloudWatch) and D (Amazon Managed Service for Prometheus). Amazon CloudWatch can collect CPU and memory metrics from EC2 instances using the CloudWatch agent, and Amazon Managed Service for Prometheus can scrape and store metrics from those instances. Option A is incorrect because AWS Trusted Advisor provides best-practice checks, not granular metrics. Option C is incorrect because AWS CloudTrail records API activity. Option E is incorrect because AWS Config tracks configuration changes.
Variation 7. Which TWO AWS services can be used to monitor the performance of SAP HANA on AWS and set alarms? (Select TWO.)
medium- A.AWS CloudTrail
- B.AWS Config
- C.AWS Trusted Advisor
- ✓ D.Amazon CloudWatch
- ✓ E.AWS Systems Manager
Why D: Options D and E are correct. Amazon CloudWatch is used for monitoring SAP HANA on AWS and setting alarms based on metrics. AWS Systems Manager can run scripts to collect custom metrics and trigger alarms. Option A is incorrect because CloudTrail is for API auditing, not performance monitoring. Option B is incorrect because AWS Config evaluates configuration compliance. Option C is incorrect because Trusted Advisor provides best practice checks, not real-time monitoring.
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.