PAS-C01 Design of SAP Workloads on AWS Practice Question
An SAP Basis team is designing a high-availability (HA) setup for SAP NetWeaver on AWS. They plan to use a shared file system for transport directories. Which storage solution provides the most cost-effective NFS share with support for automatic failover across Availability Zones?
⚠ Common exam trap
Many candidates assume Amazon EFS is the default choice for any NFS workload on AWS due to its simplicity and regional failover, but they overlook that FSx for NetApp ONTAP is specifically optimized for SAP workloads with better cost efficiency and performance consistency for transport directories, making it the correct answer in this context.
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
✓
Amazon FSx for NetApp ONTAP
Amazon FSx for NetApp ONTAP is the correct choice because it provides a fully managed, highly available NFS share that supports automatic failover across Availability Zones (AZs) using NetApp's SnapMirror and multi-AZ HA pair architecture. It is the most cost-effective solution for SAP transport directories that require a shared file system with cross-AZ failover, as it offers native NFSv3/v4.1 support, consistent performance, and lower total cost of ownership compared to alternatives for this specific SAP workload.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Amazon Elastic File System (EFS)
Why it's wrong here
Amazon Elastic File System (EFS) is tempting as it provides a fully managed, highly available NFS share with data automatically replicated across multiple Availability Zones, making it suitable for shared SAP directories requiring multi-AZ access. However, it fails the "most cost-effective" criterion for transport directories. While EFS offers inherent resilience, its pricing model is generally not the most economical option when compared to other AWS storage services that can provide similar cross-AZ failover capabilities at a lower cost for this specific, often less performance-intensive, SAP use case.
- ✗
Amazon EBS Multi-Attach gp3 volume
Why it's wrong here
EBS Multi-Attach is limited to a single AZ and doesn't provide cross-AZ failover.
- ✓
Amazon FSx for NetApp ONTAP
Why this is correct
FSx for NetApp ONTAP provides a fully managed NFS share with cross-AZ HA, suitable for SAP transport directories.
- ✗
Amazon S3 with AWS Storage Gateway file gateway
Why it's wrong here
S3 is object storage and not ideal for shared file systems requiring low latency.
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
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