PAS-C01 Operations and Maintenance Practice Question
An SAP system running on AWS uses a Multi-AZ deployment with an Application Load Balancer (ALB) distributing traffic across two application servers in different Availability Zones. The ALB health checks are configured to check the /sap/public/health endpoint on each instance. Recently, the operations team noticed that one of the instances is being marked as unhealthy intermittently, causing a slight increase in response times. The instance's CPU utilization is under 40%, memory is sufficient, and the health endpoint returns a 200 OK status when tested manually. 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 health check interval is too frequent or the timeout is too short.
A health check interval that is too frequent or a timeout that is too short can cause the ALB to mark an instance as unhealthy intermittently, even when the endpoint returns 200 OK manually. The instance may occasionally respond slower than the timeout, especially under brief transient conditions. Option A is incorrect because the health check endpoint path is correct (as it returns 200 OK). Option B is incorrect because security group rules allowing inbound traffic from the ALB are typically configured correctly; otherwise, the health check would fail consistently. Option C is incorrect because network ACLs are stateless and would affect all traffic equally, not intermittently.
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 health check endpoint is configured with the wrong path.
Why it's wrong here
This is incorrect because the health check endpoint path /sap/public/health is correct and returns 200 OK when tested manually.
- ✗
The security group for the instances does not allow inbound traffic from the ALB.
Why it's wrong here
This is incorrect because if the security group blocked inbound traffic from the ALB, all health checks would fail consistently, not intermittently.
- ✗
The health check requests are blocked by a network ACL.
Why it's wrong here
This is incorrect because network ACLs affect traffic at the subnet level and would block all traffic, not just health checks intermittently. Manual tests working show ACLs are not blocking.
- ✓
The health check interval is too frequent or the timeout is too short.
Why this is correct
This is correct because intermittent failures with low CPU and memory suggest the health check timing parameters (interval or timeout) are too aggressive, causing the ALB to mark the instance unhealthy when the endpoint response time slightly increases.
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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.