PAS-C01 Operations and Maintenance Practice Question
An SAP administrator is troubleshooting a failed backup of SAP HANA to Amazon S3. The backup is initiated by an SAP HANA BACKUP command using the S3 backint agent. The error log shows 'HTTP 403 Forbidden' when the agent tries to upload to the S3 bucket. The bucket policy allows s3:PutObject from the VPC endpoint. What is the most likely cause?
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 VPC endpoint policy for S3 does not grant the required actions to the IAM role.
The HTTP 403 Forbidden error indicates that the request was received but denied. Since the bucket policy allows s3:PutObject from the VPC endpoint, the issue is likely that the VPC endpoint policy itself does not grant the required actions to the IAM role. VPC endpoint policies act as a separate layer that can override bucket policies. Option D is correct. Option A is wrong because the bucket exists. Option B is wrong because cross-region access would not cause a 403. Option C is wrong because SSE-KMS would cause a 400 error, not 403.
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 S3 bucket does not exist.
Why it's wrong here
If the bucket didn't exist, the error would be 404 Not Found.
- ✗
The S3 bucket is not in the same AWS Region as the EC2 instance.
Why it's wrong here
Cross-region access works; would cause latency, not 403, unless bucket policy explicitly denies.
- ✗
The S3 bucket uses server-side encryption with AWS KMS (SSE-KMS) and the IAM role lacks kms:GenerateDataKey.
Why it's wrong here
Missing KMS permissions would cause a different error, not plain 403.
- ✓
The VPC endpoint policy for S3 does not grant the required actions to the IAM role.
Why this is correct
VPC endpoint policies can restrict access even if bucket policy allows it.
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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JA
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.