PAS-C01 Technology Practice Question
An SAP system administrator notices that an SAP S/4HANA system on AWS is experiencing high network latency between the application server and the database server. Both servers are in the same VPC but in different Availability Zones. What is the most effective way to reduce latency?
⚠ Common exam trap
It's easy for candidates to assume cross-AZ latency can be solved by network optimizations like VPC peering or Global Accelerator, but the fundamental fix is to co-locate the instances in the same Availability Zone using a placement group.
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
✓
Launch both instances in the same placement group and enable EBS optimization.
Launching both instances in the same placement group ensures they are in close physical proximity within the same Availability Zone, which minimizes network latency. Enabling EBS-optimized instances dedicates network bandwidth to EBS I/O, reducing contention and further improving database performance. This directly addresses the high latency caused by cross-AZ traffic between the SAP application and database servers.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Set up VPC peering between the two subnets.
Why it's wrong here
VPC peering is for connecting different VPCs, not subnets within the same VPC.
- ✗
Deploy AWS Global Accelerator to optimize the traffic path.
Why it's wrong here
Global Accelerator is designed for internet-facing applications, not for traffic within a VPC.
- ✗
Add multiple Elastic Network Interfaces (ENIs) to the instances.
Why it's wrong here
Multiple ENIs do not reduce latency between instances in different AZs; they are used for network segregation.
- ✓
Launch both instances in the same placement group and enable EBS optimization.
Why this is correct
Placement groups ensure low-latency network performance between instances, and EBS optimization dedicates bandwidth for storage traffic.
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