PAS-C01 Design of SAP Workloads on AWS Practice Question
An SAP on AWS environment is experiencing intermittent connectivity issues between the SAP application servers and the SAP HANA database. Both are in the same VPC but in different Availability Zones. The network team has confirmed that the security groups allow traffic on the required ports. What is a likely cause of the issue?
⚠ Common exam trap
Many exam-takers assume security groups (which are stateful) are the only firewall layer, forgetting that Network ACLs are stateless and require explicit outbound rules for return traffic, especially when traffic crosses Availability Zones.
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
✓
Network ACLs are misconfigured, blocking return traffic.
Network ACLs are stateless, meaning they evaluate inbound and outbound traffic separately. Even if inbound rules allow traffic from the SAP application servers to the HANA database, the outbound rules on the database subnet's NACL must explicitly allow the return traffic (ephemeral ports) back to the application servers. Misconfigured outbound rules in the NACL can drop the response packets, causing intermittent connectivity issues between the application and database tiers across Availability Zones.
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 Shield Advanced is blocking legitimate traffic.
Why it's wrong here
Shield is for DDoS protection, not blocking legitimate traffic.
- ✓
Network ACLs are misconfigured, blocking return traffic.
Why this is correct
Network ACLs are stateless, so even when security groups permit outbound traffic from application servers to the HANA database, a misconfigured inbound rule on the ACL for the database subnet can block ephemeral return traffic, causing intermittent connectivity. This satisfies the constraint that both instances reside in different Availability Zones, where ACLs operate at the subnet boundary.
- ✗
VPC Flow Logs are enabled and dropping packets.
Why it's wrong here
Flow Logs only log, they do not drop packets.
- ✗
The VPC is using AWS Direct Connect, which adds latency.
Why it's wrong here
Direct Connect would not cause intermittent connectivity.
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JA
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.