PAS-C01 Operations and Maintenance Practice Question
An SAP system on AWS is configured with a Multi-AZ deployment for high availability. During a failover test, the operations team notices that the secondary instance does not take over correctly. What is the most likely cause?
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 route tables or security groups do not allow traffic to the secondary instance.
After a failover, the secondary instance becomes the active one, and if route tables or security groups do not permit traffic to it, clients cannot connect, causing the failover to appear ineffective. Option A is incorrect because the SAP application layer retry connections may affect user experience but not the failover mechanism itself. Option B is incorrect because CloudWatch alarms are monitoring thresholds and do not directly control failover behavior. Option D is incorrect because in a properly configured Multi-AZ setup, IP address changes are handled automatically (e.g., via Elastic IP or DNS updates), so this is less likely to be the root cause.
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 SAP application layer is not configured to retry connections.
Why it's wrong here
Application retry logic is important but does not cause failover to fail.
- ✗
The CloudWatch alarm thresholds for failover are set too high.
Why it's wrong here
CloudWatch alarms do not trigger failover; they only monitor.
- ✓
The route tables or security groups do not allow traffic to the secondary instance.
Why this is correct
Network configuration errors can prevent failover from completing.
- ✗
The secondary instance's IP address is not automatically updated in DNS.
Why it's wrong here
Multi-AZ deployments typically use DNS updates, but this is not the primary issue.
Go deeper
Related to this question
About these practice questions
One of 1,616 original PAS-C01 practice questions on Courseiva, each with a full explanation and wrong-answer analysis — not exam dumps or protected exam content. Learn why practice questions differ from exam dumps →
Same concept, more angles
1 more way this is tested on PAS-C01
These questions test the same concept from different angles. Work through them to make sure you can recognise it however the exam phrases it.
Variation 1. An SAP system on AWS is configured with a multi-AZ deployment for high availability. During a failover test, the secondary instance does not take over as expected. The administrator checks the AWS Management Console and sees that the Elastic IP address is still attached to the primary instance. What is the most likely cause?
hard- ✓ A.The Elastic IP is not reassigned during the failover process
- B.The secondary instance's root volume is not attached
- C.The security group of the secondary instance blocks incoming traffic
- D.The route tables are not updated to point to the secondary instance
Why A: In a typical HA setup, the Elastic IP should be reassigned to the secondary instance during failover. If it remains attached to the primary, the secondary cannot be reached. The root device is not relevant to IP assignment. Route tables are not per-instance. Security groups allow traffic but do not prevent failover.
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.