PAS-C01 Design of SAP Workloads on AWS Practice Question
An SAP application on AWS is experiencing high network latency and packet loss between the SAP application server and the SAP HANA database. The application and database are in the same AWS Region and Availability Zone. What is the most likely cause?
⚠ Common exam trap
It's easy for candidates to assume jumbo frames or placement groups are the root cause of latency and packet loss, but the real issue is a TCP offload feature (TSO) causing segment size mismatches, which is a subtle but common problem in SAP HANA on AWS deployments.
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
✓
TCP segmentation offloading (TSO) is enabled on the HANA database instance.
C is correct because TCP segmentation offloading (TSO) on the HANA database instance can cause the network interface to deliver oversized TCP segments to the SAP application server, which may not handle them correctly, leading to packet loss and high latency. This is a known issue in SAP on AWS environments where TSO offloads segmentation to the NIC, but if the receiving side lacks proper support or the network path has MTU mismatches, fragmentation and retransmissions occur.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Jumbo frames are enabled on the application server but not on the database server.
Why it's wrong here
Mismatched MTU can cause issues, but jumbo frames generally improve performance.
- ✗
The instances are not in a placement group.
Why it's wrong here
Placement groups actually reduce latency.
- ✓
TCP segmentation offloading (TSO) is enabled on the HANA database instance.
Why this is correct
TSO can cause performance issues with HANA; it's recommended to disable it.
- ✗
The Elastic Network Adapter (ENA) driver is not installed.
Why it's wrong here
ENA improves performance; its absence would cause other issues.
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Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
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