PAS-C01 Technology Practice Question
An SAP system administrator is troubleshooting a performance issue on an SAP application server running on an EC2 instance. The /usr/sap directory is on an EBS volume. The administrator notices high I/O wait times. Which action should be taken to improve I/O performance?
⚠ Common exam trap
Watch out — candidates often confuse compute scaling (Option D) with storage performance tuning, overlooking that I/O wait is a storage-layer metric that requires adjusting EBS volume type or IOPS, not instance size.
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
✓
Change the EBS volume type to io2 Block Express with provisioned IOPS
The io2 Block Express volume type provides up to 256,000 provisioned IOPS and sub-millisecond latency, which directly addresses high I/O wait times caused by insufficient IOPS on the EBS volume hosting /usr/sap. SAP application servers are sensitive to storage latency, and increasing provisioned IOPS reduces queue depth and wait times for database and log writes.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Migrate the /usr/sap directory to Amazon EFS
Why it's wrong here
EFS may introduce network latency and is not optimized for high I/O workloads like SAP /usr/sap.
- ✗
Move the /usr/sap directory to an instance store volume
Why it's wrong here
Instance store volumes are ephemeral; data would be lost on instance stop/termination, which is not suitable for SAP.
- ✓
Change the EBS volume type to io2 Block Express with provisioned IOPS
Why this is correct
io2 volumes with provisioned IOPS can significantly improve I/O performance for high-throughput workloads like SAP.
- ✗
Increase the instance size to a larger instance type
Why it's wrong here
Increasing instance size may not directly improve I/O performance of the EBS volume; it provides more network bandwidth but not necessarily lower I/O wait.
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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.