PAS-C01 Design of SAP Workloads on AWS Practice Question
An organization runs SAP S/4HANA on AWS with a single-host HANA database on an EC2 instance. The company wants to implement high availability (HA) for the HANA database within the same AWS Region. The HA solution must ensure automatic failover with minimal data loss. The SAP application servers are already distributed across multiple Availability Zones (AZs). The database administrator proposes using SAP HANA System Replication (HSR) with synchronous replication. However, the network latency between the primary and secondary HANA instances is consistently between 2 ms and 4 ms. What should the administrator do to ensure that the HA solution meets the requirements?
⚠ Common exam trap
A common mix-up: candidates assume synchronous replication is always the best choice for HA, ignoring the strict latency threshold required for HANA synchronous replication to function without performance impact.
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
✓
Deploy both HANA instances in the same Availability Zone to reduce network latency.
SAP HANA System Replication (HSR) with synchronous mode requires network latency typically below 1 ms to avoid transaction commit delays and replication timeouts. With consistent 2–4 ms latency, synchronous replication would cause unacceptable performance degradation and potential replication failures. Deploying both HANA instances in the same Availability Zone (AZ) reduces latency to sub-millisecond levels, enabling synchronous replication to meet the automatic failover and minimal data loss requirements.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Increase the HANA replication timeout value to accommodate the latency.
Why it's wrong here
Timeout is not the issue; the issue is the impact on transaction commit times.
- ✗
Use asynchronous replication instead and accept the risk of data loss.
Why it's wrong here
Asynchronous replication may result in data loss, which the requirement wants to minimize.
- ✗
Continue with synchronous replication; the latency is acceptable for HA.
Why it's wrong here
Latency of 2-4 ms may cause performance degradation in synchronous mode.
- ✓
Deploy both HANA instances in the same Availability Zone to reduce network latency.
Why this is correct
Same AZ reduces latency, making synchronous replication feasible.
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