- A
Use a cluster of EC2 instances across two Availability Zones with shared storage and a cluster manager.
This provides HA across AZs with failover.
- B
Deploy the ASCS on a single large EC2 instance with a Multi-Attach EBS volume.
Why wrong: Single instance is a single point of failure.
- C
Use an Auto Scaling group with a launch configuration for ASCS.
Why wrong: Auto Scaling is not suitable for stateful SAP services.
- D
Deploy two EC2 instances in the same Availability Zone with a replicated file system.
Why wrong: Same AZ does not protect against AZ failure.
Question 945 of 1,733
SAP ASCS/ERS High Availability on AWS: Architecture and Best Practices
This PAS-C01 practice question tests your understanding of technology. Match the stated requirement to the specific cloud service, access model, or configuration option — many options are valid in isolation but not for this scenario. After answering, compare your reasoning against the explanation and wrong-answer breakdown below. Once you have made your selection, read the full explanation to reinforce the concept and understand why each distractor is designed to mislead on exam day.
A company is migrating an SAP system to AWS and needs to ensure high availability for the SAP Central Services (ASCS) instance. Which architecture should be used to meet this requirement?
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
✓
Use a cluster of EC2 instances across two Availability Zones with shared storage and a cluster manager.
SAP Central Services (ASCS) requires a high-availability cluster that can fail over between physical hosts while maintaining shared storage and a quorum mechanism. Deploying a cluster of EC2 instances across two Availability Zones with shared storage (e.g., Amazon EFS or FSx for NetApp ONTAP) and a cluster manager (e.g., Pacemaker) meets this requirement by providing automatic failover and data consistency. This architecture aligns with SAP's official high-availability guidelines for AWS, which mandate multi-AZ deployment to tolerate an entire AZ failure.
Key principle: Answer the scenario, not the keyword: identify the specific constraint before choosing the most familiar-sounding option.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✓
Use a cluster of EC2 instances across two Availability Zones with shared storage and a cluster manager.
Why this is correct
This provides HA across AZs with failover.
Related concept
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
- ✗
Deploy the ASCS on a single large EC2 instance with a Multi-Attach EBS volume.
Why it's wrong here
Single instance is a single point of failure.
- ✗
Use an Auto Scaling group with a launch configuration for ASCS.
Why it's wrong here
Auto Scaling is not suitable for stateful SAP services.
- ✗
Deploy two EC2 instances in the same Availability Zone with a replicated file system.
Why it's wrong here
Same AZ does not protect against AZ failure.
Common exam traps
Common exam trap: answer the scenario, not the keyword
The trap here is that candidates often confuse high availability with fault tolerance or scalability, leading them to choose Auto Scaling (Option C) or a single-instance Multi-Attach EBS (Option B), which do not provide the automatic failover and AZ-level resilience required for SAP ASCS.
Detailed technical explanation
How to think about this question
Under the hood, SAP ASCS high availability relies on a cluster manager (typically Pacemaker with Corosync) that uses STONITH (Shoot The Other Node In The Head) fencing to prevent split-brain scenarios. Shared storage must be a network file system (e.g., Amazon EFS or FSx for ONTAP) that supports concurrent read/write from both nodes, as EBS Multi-Attach is limited to a single AZ and does not support the required fencing semantics. In a real-world migration, customers often use AWS Resilience Hub to validate the cluster configuration against SAP's HA certification requirements.
KKey Concepts to Remember
- Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
- Find the constraint that changes the correct option.
- Eliminate answers that are true in general but not in this case.
TExam Day Tips
- Watch for words such as best, first, most likely and least administrative effort.
- Review why wrong options are wrong, not only why the correct option is correct.
Key takeaway
Answer the scenario, not the keyword: identify the specific constraint before choosing the most familiar-sounding option.
Real-world example
How this comes up in practice
A media company stores terabytes of video archives that are accessed once a year for audit purposes. Moving these objects to a cold storage tier (Azure Archive, S3 Glacier, or Google Nearline) costs a fraction of hot storage. Questions like this test whether you understand storage tiers, access frequency tradeoffs, and retrieval latency requirements.
Quick reference
AWS S3 Storage Class Comparison
| Storage Class | Min Duration | Retrieval | Use Case |
|---|---|---|---|
| S3 Standard | None | Immediate | Frequently accessed data |
| S3 Standard-IA | 30 days | Immediate | Infrequent access, rapid retrieval |
| S3 One Zone-IA | 30 days | Immediate | Non-critical infrequent data |
| S3 Intelligent-Tiering | None | Immediate–hours | Unknown or changing access patterns |
| S3 Glacier Instant | 90 days | Milliseconds | Archive with instant retrieval |
| S3 Glacier Flexible | 90 days | Minutes–hours | Archive, flexible retrieval |
| S3 Glacier Deep Archive | 180 days | Hours | Long-term compliance archive |
What to study next
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FAQ
Questions learners often ask
What does this PAS-C01 question test?
Technology — This question tests Technology — Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer..
What is the correct answer to this question?
The correct answer is: Use a cluster of EC2 instances across two Availability Zones with shared storage and a cluster manager. — SAP Central Services (ASCS) requires a high-availability cluster that can fail over between physical hosts while maintaining shared storage and a quorum mechanism. Deploying a cluster of EC2 instances across two Availability Zones with shared storage (e.g., Amazon EFS or FSx for NetApp ONTAP) and a cluster manager (e.g., Pacemaker) meets this requirement by providing automatic failover and data consistency. This architecture aligns with SAP's official high-availability guidelines for AWS, which mandate multi-AZ deployment to tolerate an entire AZ failure.
What should I do if I get this PAS-C01 question wrong?
Identify which exam domain this question belongs to, review the core concept, then practise similar questions from the same domain.
What is the key concept behind this question?
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
About these practice questions
Courseiva creates original exam-style practice questions with explanations and wrong-answer analysis. It does not publish real exam questions, exam dumps, or protected exam content. Learn why practice questions differ from exam dumps →
Same concept, more angles
7 more ways 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. A company is deploying SAP NetWeaver on AWS and needs to configure high availability for the SAP Central Services (ASCS) and Enqueue Replication Server (ERS). The solution must use AWS native services. Which TWO actions should be taken?
medium- ✓ A.Associate an Elastic IP address with the active ASCS instance using a script.
- B.Place an Application Load Balancer in front of the ASCS instances.
- C.Set up AWS Direct Connect for redundant connectivity.
- D.Deploy AWS Global Accelerator for failover.
- ✓ E.Use Amazon Route 53 with health checks and failover routing policy.
Why A: Option A is correct because an Elastic IP address can be programmatically reassigned to the standby ASCS instance using a script (e.g., AWS CLI or custom automation) during a failover event. This provides a stable virtual IP address that clients use to connect to the active ASCS, meeting the high availability requirement without relying on a load balancer, which is not suitable for SAP Central Services due to its stateful nature and the need for a fixed IP address.
Variation 2. A company is deploying SAP NetWeaver on AWS and needs to ensure high availability for the SAP Central Services (ASCS) instance. Which TWO AWS features should be used together to achieve this?
medium- ✓ A.Network Load Balancer (NLB)
- B.Amazon RDS Multi-AZ
- C.Application Load Balancer (ALB)
- D.Amazon S3
- ✓ E.Amazon EFS
Why A: Amazon EFS provides a shared filesystem for the ASCS cluster, and a Network Load Balancer (NLB) is used to distribute traffic to the active ASCS instance. S3 is not suitable for shared files, and Multi-AZ for RDS is for databases, not ASCS.
Variation 3. A company is deploying SAP NetWeaver on AWS and wants to ensure high availability for the SAP Central Services (ASCS) and Enqueue Replication Server (ERS). They plan to use a cluster manager (Pacemaker) with a shared filesystem. The cluster will span two Availability Zones. The storage for the shared filesystem must be highly available and provide consistent performance. What storage solution should be used?
medium- A.Use an Amazon S3 bucket as the shared filesystem.
- B.Use instance store volumes (Local SSDs) on each node.
- C.Use an Amazon EBS volume with Multi-Attach enabled.
- ✓ D.Use Amazon EFS for the shared filesystem.
Why D: Option D is correct. Amazon EFS provides a fully managed NFS filesystem that can be mounted from multiple EC2 instances across different Availability Zones, offering high availability and consistent performance for SAP Central Services (ASCS) and Enqueue Replication Server (ERS) shared filesystem. Option A is incorrect because Amazon S3 is object storage, not a POSIX-compliant filesystem, and cannot be used as a shared filesystem for SAP. Option B is incorrect because instance store volumes are ephemeral and local to each instance; they cannot be shared between nodes. Option C is incorrect because EBS Multi-Attach only supports attachment to multiple instances within the same Availability Zone, not across AZs, and has additional limitations for shared filesystem use.
Variation 4. A company is deploying SAP NetWeaver on AWS and needs to set up high availability for the SAP Central Services (ASCS) and Enqueue Replication Server (ERS). The company uses a shared file system for the transport directory. Which components are essential for the HA setup? (Choose TWO.)
medium- A.Amazon S3 as the transport directory.
- ✓ B.An internal Application Load Balancer (ALB) to distribute traffic to the ASCS instance.
- C.Both ASCS and ERS instances must run on the same EC2 instance.
- D.Amazon RDS Multi-AZ for the SAP database.
- ✓ E.The ASCS and ERS instances must be located in different Availability Zones.
Why B: An internal Application Load Balancer (ALB) is essential because it provides a virtual IP address and health checks for the SAP ASCS instance. In a multi-AZ HA setup, the ALB routes client traffic to the active ASCS instance and automatically fails over to the standby instance if the primary fails, ensuring continuous access to SAP Central Services.
Variation 5. A company is migrating its SAP system to AWS and needs to ensure high availability for the SAP Central Services (ASCS/ERS) instance. The solution must support automatic failover in case of an instance failure. Which AWS service should be used to manage the floating IP address required for the SAP high availability setup?
medium- ✓ A.Amazon Route 53
- B.Elastic IP address
- C.Amazon CloudFront
- D.AWS Global Accelerator
Why A: Amazon Route 53 can be configured with health checks and DNS failover to manage the floating IP address required for SAP Central Services (ASCS/ERS) high availability. When the primary ASCS instance fails, Route 53 automatically updates DNS resolution to point to the secondary instance's IP address, enabling automatic failover without requiring a static floating IP.
Variation 6. A company is migrating an SAP ERP system to AWS and needs to ensure high availability for the SAP Central Services (ASCS) and Enqueue Replication Server (ERS). The solution must use a shared file system for the SAP transport directory. Which combination of AWS services should be used?
hard- A.Amazon FSx for Windows File Server for the transport directory
- B.Amazon S3 as the transport directory with two application servers
- ✓ C.Amazon EFS for the transport directory and two EC2 instances with a floating IP
- D.Amazon EBS volumes attached to both ASCS and ERS instances
Why C: Option C is correct because SAP ASCS and ERS require a highly available shared file system for the SAP transport directory, and Amazon EFS provides a fully managed NFS file system that can be mounted by multiple EC2 instances across Availability Zones. The floating IP (using AWS Elastic IP or a secondary private IP) allows the ASCS and ERS services to fail over transparently between the two EC2 instances, meeting the high availability requirements without relying on a single point of failure.
Variation 7. A company is running SAP on AWS and wants to ensure high availability for the SAP Central Services (ASCS) instance. They have two EC2 instances in different Availability Zones within a single AWS Region. Which AWS service should be used to automatically fail over the ASCS instance if the primary instance fails?
medium- A.Application Load Balancer (ALB)
- B.AWS Auto Scaling
- C.AWS CloudFormation
- ✓ D.Amazon Route 53
Why D: Amazon Route 53 can be configured with a health check that monitors the primary ASCS instance. When the health check fails, Route 53 automatically updates DNS records to point to the secondary instance in the other Availability Zone, enabling failover routing. This provides a DNS-level failover mechanism that is suitable for SAP Central Services, which requires a stable IP address or hostname for client connections.
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Last reviewed: Jul 4, 2026
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