PAS-C01 Design of SAP Workloads on AWS Practice Question
An SAP system on AWS uses a large memory instance (x1e.32xlarge) for HANA. The administrator notices that the system is experiencing high swap usage. The HANA memory usage is at 90% of physical RAM. The instance has 4 TB of RAM, and the HANA data size is 3.8 TB. The administrator wants to avoid swap usage to maintain performance. Which solution should be implemented?
⚠ Common exam trap
Many candidates think compression (Option C) is a quick fix, but they overlook that HANA's memory usage already includes compressed data, and the instance's RAM is simply too small for the dataset, making a larger instance the only viable solution.
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
✓
Migrate to a larger instance type, such as u-6tb1, with more RAM.
The x1e.32xlarge instance has 4 TB of RAM, and with HANA using 90% (3.6 TB) and the data size at 3.8 TB, the memory is insufficient to hold the entire dataset, causing swap usage. Migrating to a u-6tb1 instance with 6 TB of RAM provides enough physical memory to accommodate the full HANA data footprint, eliminating the need for swap and maintaining performance.
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 to a larger instance type, such as u-6tb1, with more RAM.
Why this is correct
More RAM eliminates need for swap.
- ✗
Enable swap space on the instance store volumes to offload memory pressure.
Why it's wrong here
Swap on instance store is still swap and degrades performance.
- ✗
Optimize HANA column store compression to reduce memory footprint.
Why it's wrong here
Compression may help but may not reduce enough; also, data size is close to RAM.
- ✗
Increase the provisioned IOPS on the EBS volumes to reduce I/O latency.
Why it's wrong here
Swap usage is due to insufficient RAM, not I/O.
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