PAS-C01 Technology Practice Question
An SAP administrator notices that the SAP HANA database on an r5.8xlarge instance is experiencing high swap usage. The instance has 256 GB of RAM. The SAP HANA memory usage is 200 GB. What is the most likely cause?
⚠ Common exam trap
Test-takers frequently assume high swap usage always means memory is exhausted, but in AWS PAS-C01, the focus is on swap sizing best practices for SAP HANA, where even with free RAM, a small swap partition can cause excessive paging.
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 swap space is too small for the HANA workload
High swap usage on an r5.8xlarge instance with 256 GB RAM when SAP HANA is using 200 GB indicates that the system is actively paging memory to disk. SAP HANA is designed to run in-memory and should not normally use swap; however, if the swap space is too small to accommodate the overflow when memory pressure occurs, the system will exhibit high swap activity. The correct answer is C because insufficient swap space forces the kernel to thrash, causing high swap usage even when total memory is not fully exhausted.
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 instance memory is exhausted
Why it's wrong here
200 GB usage on 256 GB leaves 56 GB free, so memory is not exhausted.
- ✗
HANA is using huge pages instead of swap
Why it's wrong here
Huge pages reduce swap usage, not increase it.
- ✓
The swap space is too small for the HANA workload
Why this is correct
HANA recommends swap equal to RAM; 256 GB swap is needed.
- ✗
Swap is disabled on the instance
Why it's wrong here
Swap is typically enabled by default on AWS instances.
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