PAS-C01 Design of SAP Workloads on AWS Practice Question
An SAP HANA database on AWS is using EBS gp3 volumes with 3000 IOPS. The database team observes that the write latency is high during peak hours. The EBS volume is not exceeding its bandwidth limit. What is the most likely cause?
⚠ Common exam trap
Watch out — candidates often confuse IOPS limits with bandwidth limits, assuming high latency must be due to bandwidth saturation, but the question explicitly rules out bandwidth as the cause, pointing directly to IOPS queuing.
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 EBS volume's IOPS limit is being reached, causing queuing.
The observed high write latency during peak hours, despite the EBS volume not exceeding its bandwidth limit, indicates that the volume's IOPS limit of 3000 is being reached. When the IOPS limit is hit, the EBS volume queues I/O requests, which increases latency. This is a classic symptom of IOPS saturation rather than bandwidth saturation.
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 EBS volume is not attached as a dedicated EBS bandwidth volume.
Why it's wrong here
Dedicated bandwidth is not a concept; EBS-optimized instances provide dedicated bandwidth.
- ✓
The EBS volume's IOPS limit is being reached, causing queuing.
Why this is correct
3000 IOPS may be insufficient, leading to high queue depth and latency.
- ✗
The EC2 instance's EBS bandwidth is saturated.
Why it's wrong here
The question states bandwidth is not exceeded.
- ✗
The EC2 instance does not have EBS optimization enabled.
Why it's wrong here
Most modern instances have EBS optimization enabled by default.
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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.