PAS-C01 Technology Practice Question
A company runs SAP S/4HANA on AWS with a production database on an r5.24xlarge instance and 15 application servers on r5.4xlarge instances. The system has been stable for months. Recently, the database instance started experiencing high CPU utilization during peak hours, causing performance degradation. The company has reserved capacity for the database instance. The SAP team has already optimized the SQL queries and reduced the CPU usage by 20%, but the CPU still spikes to 95% during peak hours. The team is considering upgrading the database instance to a larger type. However, the next larger instance type (r5.32xlarge) is not available in the current Availability Zone. The company needs a solution that minimizes downtime and cost. What should be done?
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
✓
Stop the database instance, change to a larger instance type in a different Availability Zone, and use a placement group with the application servers.
Stopping the database instance allows changing to a larger instance type. Since r5.32xlarge is not available in the current AZ, the instance must be moved to a different AZ where it is available. Note that cluster placement groups cannot span Availability Zones, so to use a placement group, the application servers would also need to be moved to the same AZ, increasing downtime. Therefore, the most cost-effective and minimally disruptive approach is to simply move the database instance to the new AZ and accept the minimal cross-AZ latency, which is acceptable for SAP workloads. This avoids the need to recertify a different instance family as in option B, and options C and D do not address the database bottleneck.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✓
Stop the database instance, change to a larger instance type in a different Availability Zone, and use a placement group with the application servers.
Why this is correct
Provides more CPU and maintains low latency.
- ✗
Migrate the database to a different instance family, such as x1e.32xlarge.
Why it's wrong here
Different family may not be certified for SAP HANA.
- ✗
Use an Auto Scaling group to automatically scale the database instance.
Why it's wrong here
Auto Scaling is not supported for SAP HANA.
- ✗
Add more application servers to distribute the load.
Why it's wrong here
More app servers increase database load.
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