PAS-C01 Technology Practice Question
A company runs SAP on AWS and wants to automate the failover of their SAP HANA database across Availability Zones using a multi-AZ setup. They are using Pacemaker and STONITH fencing. Which AWS resource is commonly used as a fencing device for SAP HANA multi-AZ clusters?
⚠ Common exam trap
Test-takers frequently confuse high-level AWS services like SNS or SQS with the actual low-level EC2 API calls required for STONITH fencing, mistakenly thinking notification or queuing services can directly perform instance termination.
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
✓
Amazon CloudWatch alarm and EC2 API
STONITH (Shoot The Other Node In The Head) fencing in a multi-AZ SAP HANA cluster on AWS requires a mechanism to forcibly isolate or terminate an unresponsive node. Amazon CloudWatch alarms combined with EC2 API calls (e.g., `aws ec2 stop-instances` or `aws ec2 terminate-instances`) serve as the fencing device by triggering an API action to shut down the faulty instance, ensuring data integrity and preventing split-brain scenarios.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Amazon Simple Notification Service (SNS)
Why it's wrong here
SNS is for notifications.
- ✗
Amazon Simple Queue Service (SQS)
Why it's wrong here
SQS is not used for fencing.
- ✗
Amazon RDS
Why it's wrong here
RDS is a managed database service.
- ✓
Amazon CloudWatch alarm and EC2 API
Why this is correct
The AWS STONITH agent uses CloudWatch and EC2 API to stop an unresponsive node.
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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.