PAS-C01 Operations and Maintenance Practice Question
An operations team needs to back up the SAP HANA database running on an EC2 instance. The database is 1 TB in size and the team wants to minimize backup time and cost. Which backup strategy should they use?
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
✓
Use AWS Backup to create EBS snapshots of the attached EBS volumes
EBS snapshots provide point-in-time backups that are incremental after the first full snapshot, reducing backup time and cost. HANA Studio backup to S3 requires more manual steps and is slower. AWS Backup can be used but EBS snapshots are more direct. S3 lifecycle policies are for object management, not database backups.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Use SAP HANA Studio to back up the database to Amazon S3
Why it's wrong here
While SAP HANA Studio can perform backups, directly backing up a 1 TB SAP HANA database to Amazon S3 via this method is unlikely to minimise backup time due to the lack of native parallelisation and potential network throughput limitations for such a large dataset. This approach is tempting as it is a direct, integrated method for SAP HANA administrators to perform logical backups, suitable for smaller databases or when granular object-level recovery is paramount, but it doesn't leverage the performance benefits required for large-scale, time-sensitive backups.
- ✗
Use Amazon S3 lifecycle policies to move old backups to Glacier
Why it's wrong here
Lifecycle policies manage existing objects, not create backups.
- ✗
Use AWS Systems Manager to run a script that copies data to S3
Why it's wrong here
Script-based copying is not optimized for large databases.
- ✓
Use AWS Backup to create EBS snapshots of the attached EBS volumes
Why this is correct
EBS snapshots are incremental and fast, suitable for large databases.
Quick reference
AWS S3 Storage Class Comparison
| Storage Class | Min Duration | Retrieval | Use Case |
|---|---|---|---|
| S3 Standard | None | Immediate | Frequently accessed data |
| S3 Standard-IA | 30 days | Immediate | Infrequent access, rapid retrieval |
| S3 One Zone-IA | 30 days | Immediate | Non-critical infrequent data |
| S3 Intelligent-Tiering | None | Immediate–hours | Unknown or changing access patterns |
| S3 Glacier Instant | 90 days | Milliseconds | Archive with instant retrieval |
| S3 Glacier Flexible | 90 days | Minutes–hours | Archive, flexible retrieval |
| S3 Glacier Deep Archive | 180 days | Hours | Long-term compliance archive |
Go deeper
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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.