PAS-C01 Design of SAP Workloads on AWS Practice Question
An SAP Basis administrator notices that the SAP HANA database performance has degraded significantly after migrating to AWS. The database is running on an r5.8xlarge instance with 3.6 TB of Amazon EBS gp3 storage. The administrator checks Amazon CloudWatch metrics and finds that the Read/Write latency is consistently above 10 ms and the queue depth is averaging 32. What is the MOST likely cause of the performance degradation?
⚠ Common exam trap
Candidates often confuse volume-level limits (gp3 baseline IOPS or gp2 burst credits) with instance-level EBS bandwidth limits, leading them to incorrectly select options C or D when the real bottleneck is the EC2 instance's aggregate EBS throughput capacity.
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 EC2 instance's EBS bandwidth is fully utilized, causing I/O queueing.
The r5.8xlarge instance provides a maximum EBS bandwidth of 4,750 Mbps and a maximum EBS IOPS of 60,000. With a queue depth averaging 32 and latency above 10 ms, the instance's EBS bandwidth is saturated, causing I/O requests to queue and wait. This is the classic symptom of hitting the instance-level EBS bandwidth limit, not a volume-level issue.
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 EC2 instance type does not support enough EBS bandwidth for the workload.
Why it's wrong here
r5.8xlarge supports up to 4,750 Mbps EBS bandwidth.
- ✓
The EC2 instance's EBS bandwidth is fully utilized, causing I/O queueing.
Why this is correct
High queue depth indicates I/O requests are waiting due to bandwidth saturation.
- ✗
The gp3 volume burst credit balance is exhausted, causing throughput to drop to baseline.
Why it's wrong here
gp3 volumes do not use burst credits; they have a baseline performance.
- ✗
The EBS gp3 volume size is too small, causing IOPS throttling.
Why it's wrong here
gp3 volumes provide baseline IOPS independent of size.
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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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.