PAS-C01 Technology Practice Question
An SAP Basis administrator is troubleshooting a performance issue on an SAP NetWeaver application server running on Amazon EC2. The administrator notices that the CPU utilization is low but the application response times are high. The system is using an Amazon EBS gp2 volume. Which configuration change is most likely to improve performance?
⚠ Common exam trap
Watch out — candidates often assume low CPU utilization means the instance is underpowered, leading them to choose a larger instance or more vCPUs, when in fact the symptom points to an I/O bottleneck that requires increasing EBS IOPS or switching to a provisioned IOPS volume.
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
✓
Increase the IOPS of the EBS gp2 volume or switch to io1.
Low CPU utilization with high application response times on an SAP NetWeaver server indicates that the bottleneck is I/O latency, not compute capacity. Amazon EBS gp2 volumes have a baseline IOPS performance that scales with volume size, and if the volume is small or the workload exceeds the burst balance, throughput can be throttled. Increasing the IOPS (by resizing the gp2 volume or switching to io1/io2 with provisioned IOPS) directly addresses the I/O bottleneck, reducing latency and improving application response times.
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 IOPS of the EBS gp2 volume or switch to io1.
Why this is correct
Higher IOPS improves disk throughput, reducing I/O wait.
- ✗
Change the EBS volume to instance store.
Why it's wrong here
Instance store is ephemeral and not for persistent data.
- ✗
Move the EC2 instance to a larger instance family.
Why it's wrong here
Instance size increase may not address disk I/O bottleneck.
- ✗
Increase the number of vCPUs on the EC2 instance.
Why it's wrong here
CPU is underutilized; more vCPUs won't help.
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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.