PAS-C01 Design of SAP Workloads on AWS Practice Question
An SAP Basis administrator needs to automate the start and stop of SAP application servers on AWS to reduce costs during non-business hours. The instance must be stopped (not terminated) to preserve the data. Which AWS service can be used to schedule the start and stop?
⚠ Common exam trap
It's easy for candidates to confuse 'scheduling start/stop' with 'automating scaling' (Auto Scaling) or 'scheduling maintenance tasks' (Maintenance Windows), but only AWS Instance Scheduler is purpose-built for time-based instance state transitions without termination.
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
✓
AWS Instance Scheduler
AWS Instance Scheduler is a solution that uses AWS Lambda and Amazon CloudWatch Events (Amazon EventBridge) to automatically start and stop EC2 instances based on a defined schedule. For SAP Basis administrators, this allows stopping (not terminating) SAP application server instances during non-business hours, preserving all data on the attached EBS volumes. The solution supports tagging instances with schedule tags, making it ideal for cost optimization without data loss.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
AWS Auto Scaling
Why it's wrong here
Auto Scaling is for dynamic scaling, not scheduling.
- ✗
Amazon CloudWatch Alarms
Why it's wrong here
Alarms can trigger stop/start but not on a recurring schedule easily.
- ✓
AWS Instance Scheduler
Why this is correct
Specifically designed to schedule start/stop of instances.
- ✗
AWS Systems Manager Maintenance Windows
Why it's wrong here
Maintenance Windows are for administrative tasks, not start/stop scheduling.
Quick reference
Cloud Service Model Comparison
| Model | You Manage | Provider Manages | Examples |
|---|---|---|---|
| IaaS | OS, runtime, apps, data | Hardware, hypervisor, networking | EC2, Azure VMs, GCP Compute Engine |
| PaaS | Apps and data | OS, runtime, middleware, hardware | Elastic Beanstalk, Azure App Service |
| SaaS | Data and settings only | Everything else | Microsoft 365, Salesforce, Workday |
| FaaS / Serverless | Function code only | Infra, scaling, runtime | Lambda, Azure Functions, Cloud Run |
| CaaS | Containers and apps | Kubernetes, OS, hardware | EKS, AKS, GKE |
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