PAS-C01 Design of SAP Workloads on AWS Practice Question
A company runs SAP S/4HANA on AWS with a large HANA database (10 TB). The database uses EBS gp3 volumes. The system experiences performance degradation due to high disk I/O. The architect decides to migrate to EBS io2 Block Express volumes. Which THREE factors should the architect consider when planning the migration?
⚠ Common exam trap
Test-takers frequently confuse io2 Block Express with standard io2 volumes, assuming Multi-Attach is supported, or incorrectly believe SAP HANA natively supports RAID 0 without additional volume management tools.
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 maximum IOPS per volume supported by io2 Block Express is 256,000.
Io2 Block Express volumes support a maximum IOPS of 256,000 per volume, which is significantly higher than the 16,000 IOPS limit of gp3. This high IOPS capability is critical for large SAP HANA databases (10 TB) that experience performance degradation due to high disk I/O, as it allows the database to handle bursty workloads without throttling.
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 maximum IOPS per volume supported by io2 Block Express is 256,000.
Why this is correct
High IOPS per volume is a key benefit for large HANA systems.
- ✗
SAP HANA supports RAID 0 across multiple io2 volumes without additional software.
Why it's wrong here
HANA requires LVM or similar for striping; RAID 0 is not directly supported.
- ✗
io2 Block Express volumes can be attached to multiple EC2 instances simultaneously using EBS Multi-Attach.
Why it's wrong here
io2 Block Express does not support Multi-Attach.
- ✓
To achieve the required throughput, multiple io2 volumes should be striped using LVM.
Why this is correct
Striping multiple volumes increases performance.
- ✓
The cost of io2 Block Express volumes is higher than gp3 volumes on a per-GB basis.
Why this is correct
Cost is a consideration when migrating to higher performance storage.
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