PAS-C01 Design of SAP Workloads on AWS Practice Question
This PAS-C01 practice question tests your understanding of design of sap workloads on aws. The scenario asks you to isolate a root cause — eliminate options that address a different problem before choosing. After answering, compare your reasoning against the explanation and wrong-answer breakdown below. Once you have made your selection, read the full explanation to reinforce the concept and understand why each distractor is designed to mislead on exam day.
A company runs SAP S/4HANA on AWS with a multi-tier landscape (DEV, QAS, PRD). The PRD system uses a clustered setup with two application servers behind an Application Load Balancer. The database is a single-node HANA on an r5.24xlarge instance. The administrator receives an alert that the PRD application is slow. CloudWatch metrics show high CPU utilization on the two application servers (average 95%) and high DB connection count. The ALB shows increased request latency. The database CPU is at 60%. The administrator suspects a SQL query performance issue. What should be the first step to identify the root cause?
Clue words in this question
Noticing these words before you look at the options changes how you read each choice.
Clue: "first"
Why it matters: Order matters here. You are being tested on which action comes before the others — not which action is generally useful.
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
✓
Enable detailed SQL trace in HANA to identify high-resource queries.
The symptoms (high CPU on app servers, high DB connections, increased ALB latency, DB CPU at 60%) strongly suggest a SQL query performance bottleneck, not a capacity issue. Enabling detailed SQL trace in HANA (option B) is the most direct first step to identify the specific high-resource queries causing the slowdown, as it captures execution plans, wait times, and resource consumption per query. This aligns with SAP's recommended troubleshooting methodology for HANA performance issues.
Key principle: Answer the scenario, not the keyword: identify the specific constraint before choosing the most familiar-sounding option.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
✗
Configure CloudWatch Logs to capture HANA trace logs and analyze them.
Why it's wrong here
CloudWatch Logs agent is for log collection; first need to enable tracing.
✓
Enable detailed SQL trace in HANA to identify high-resource queries.
Why this is correct
SQL trace identifies specific queries causing performance issues.
Clue confirmation
The clue word "first" in the question point toward this answer.
Related concept
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
✗
Add two more application servers to distribute the load.
Why it's wrong here
More servers won't fix slow queries; will add more connections.
✗
Increase the size of the HANA database instance to reduce CPU pressure.
Why it's wrong here
Database CPU is not maxed; issue is likely query performance.
Common exam traps
Common exam trap: answer the scenario, not the keyword
The trap here is that candidates may confuse high application server CPU with a scaling issue (option C) or assume high DB connections mean the database is underpowered (option D), rather than recognizing that a SQL performance problem can manifest as app-side symptoms while the DB CPU remains moderate.
Detailed technical explanation
How to think about this question
HANA's SQL trace captures detailed execution information including plan operators, row counts, and CPU/memory usage per statement, which can be analyzed using tools like HANA Studio or SAP HANA Database Explorer. In a real-world scenario, a missing index or suboptimal join order can cause a query to scan millions of rows, leading to high DB connections as sessions queue up, even when overall DB CPU is moderate. The trace helps identify such queries by exposing their execution plans and resource consumption.
KKey Concepts to Remember
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
Find the constraint that changes the correct option.
Eliminate answers that are true in general but not in this case.
TExam Day Tips
→Watch for words such as best, first, most likely and least administrative effort.
→Review why wrong options are wrong, not only why the correct option is correct.
Key takeaway
Answer the scenario, not the keyword: identify the specific constraint before choosing the most familiar-sounding option.
Real-world example
How this comes up in practice
A media company stores terabytes of video archives that are accessed once a year for audit purposes. Moving these objects to a cold storage tier (Azure Archive, S3 Glacier, or Google Nearline) costs a fraction of hot storage. Questions like this test whether you understand storage tiers, access frequency tradeoffs, and retrieval latency requirements.
What to study next
Got this wrong? Here's your next step.
Identify which exam domain this question belongs to, review the core concept, then practise similar questions from the same domain.
Design of SAP Workloads on AWS — This question tests Design of SAP Workloads on AWS — Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer..
What is the correct answer to this question?
The correct answer is: Enable detailed SQL trace in HANA to identify high-resource queries. — The symptoms (high CPU on app servers, high DB connections, increased ALB latency, DB CPU at 60%) strongly suggest a SQL query performance bottleneck, not a capacity issue. Enabling detailed SQL trace in HANA (option B) is the most direct first step to identify the specific high-resource queries causing the slowdown, as it captures execution plans, wait times, and resource consumption per query. This aligns with SAP's recommended troubleshooting methodology for HANA performance issues.
What should I do if I get this PAS-C01 question wrong?
Identify which exam domain this question belongs to, review the core concept, then practise similar questions from the same domain.
Are there clue words in this question I should notice?
Yes — watch for: "first". Order matters here. You are being tested on which action comes before the others — not which action is generally useful.
What is the key concept behind this question?
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
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Question Discussion
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