PAS-C01 Design of SAP Workloads on AWS Practice Question
An SAP system on AWS is experiencing high latency for database queries. The administrator notices that the EBS volume used for /hana/log has a baseline IOPS of 5000 but the workload requires 8000 IOPS. What should the administrator do to resolve this?
⚠ Common exam trap
Many candidates assume enabling bursting (Option B) solves sustained high IOPS requirements, but AWS EBS bursting is designed for spiky workloads and cannot guarantee consistent performance for a constant 8000 IOPS demand, whereas increasing volume size directly raises baseline IOPS for gp3 volumes.
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
✓
Increase the volume size to gain additional baseline IOPS
Increasing the volume size of a gp3 or io1/io2 EBS volume directly increases its baseline IOPS performance. For gp3 volumes, baseline IOPS scales at a rate of 3 IOPS per GiB up to 16,000 IOPS, so increasing the volume size from approximately 1667 GiB (5000/3) to at least 2667 GiB (8000/3) would raise the baseline IOPS to 8000. This ensures consistent performance for /hana/log without relying on burst credits or migrating to a different volume type.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Enable EBS Multi-Attach
Why it's wrong here
Multi-Attach allows multiple instances to attach, not increase IOPS.
- ✗
Enable volume bursting
Why it's wrong here
Bursting is limited and not a solution for sustained high IOPS.
- ✗
Migrate to an io2 Block Express volume
Why it's wrong here
Migrating to an io2 Block Express volume is an over-provisioned solution for the stated requirement. The problem indicates the existing volume has a baseline IOPS of 5000 but requires 8000 IOPS; a standard io2 volume can easily scale to 8000 provisioned IOPS by modifying its configuration, without needing a full migration. This option is tempting because io2 Block Express offers significantly higher maximum IOPS and throughput, up to 256,000 IOPS and 4,000 MB/s, making it suitable for extremely demanding SAP HANA workloads that require millions of IOPS or hundreds of thousands of MB/s throughput, far exceeding the 8000 IOPS needed here.
- ✓
Increase the volume size to gain additional baseline IOPS
Why this is correct
Increasing gp3 volume size increases baseline IOPS proportionally.
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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.