PAS-C01 Design of SAP Workloads on AWS Practice Question
This PAS-C01 practice question tests your understanding of design of sap workloads on aws. The scenario asks you to isolate a root cause — eliminate options that address a different problem before choosing. 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.
An administrator creates a CloudFormation stack with the template shown in the exhibit. The stack creates an Auto Scaling group with a desired capacity of 2. However, only one instance is launched. What is the most likely reason?
Clue words in this question
Noticing these words before you look at the options changes how you read each choice.
Clue: "most likely"
Why it matters: Probability qualifier — the question wants the most probable cause or outcome, not a guaranteed one. Eliminate low-probability options.
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
✓
The Auto Scaling group is unable to launch the second instance due to capacity constraints.
Option C is correct because the Auto Scaling group's desired capacity of 2 cannot be met if there are insufficient EC2 instance resources (e.g., vCPU, memory, or network capacity) in the selected Availability Zones. AWS Auto Scaling will launch as many instances as possible up to the desired capacity, but if the second instance launch fails due to a capacity constraint (e.g., insufficient m5.large capacity in the specified AZs), only one instance will be launched. The stack creation will still succeed, but the Auto Scaling group will remain at the lower count until capacity becomes available.
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.
✗
The instance type m5.large is not available in the selected AZs.
Why it's wrong here
M5 is generally available.
✗
The DesiredCapacity is set incorrectly to 1.
Why it's wrong here
DesiredCapacity is set to 2.
✓
The Auto Scaling group is unable to launch the second instance due to capacity constraints.
Why this is correct
Capacity constraints in the AZs could prevent launching additional instances.
Clue confirmation
The clue word "most likely" in the question point toward this answer.
Related concept
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
✗
The MinSize is set to 1, so only one instance is allowed.
Why it's wrong here
MinSize is 1, but DesiredCapacity is 2, so it should launch 2.
Common exam traps
Common exam trap: answer the scenario, not the keyword
The trap here is that candidates often confuse capacity constraints with instance type availability (Option A) or misinterpret MinSize as a hard limit on the number of instances (Option D), when in fact Auto Scaling groups can launch more instances than MinSize as long as they do not exceed MaxSize.
Detailed technical explanation
How to think about this question
Under the hood, Auto Scaling groups use the EC2 RunInstances API to launch instances, and if the API returns an InsufficientInstanceCapacity error for a specific instance type in a given AZ, the Auto Scaling group will retry the launch in other AZs (if multiple are configured) but may ultimately fail to meet the desired capacity. This is a common issue in regions or AZs with high demand for certain instance types, such as burstable or compute-optimized families. In real-world scenarios, this can be mitigated by using On-Demand Capacity Reservations or specifying multiple instance types in a mixed instances policy.
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
An e-commerce site experiences heavy traffic on Black Friday and near-zero traffic during off-peak weeks. Rather than provisioning permanent large VMs, the team uses auto-scaling groups that add capacity automatically under load and reduce it overnight. Questions like this test whether you understand elasticity, availability zones, and cloud compute scaling patterns.
What to study next
Got this wrong? Here's your next step.
Identify which exam domain this question belongs to, review the core concept, then practise similar questions from the same domain.
Design of SAP Workloads on AWS — This question tests Design of SAP Workloads on AWS — Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer..
What is the correct answer to this question?
The correct answer is: The Auto Scaling group is unable to launch the second instance due to capacity constraints. — Option C is correct because the Auto Scaling group's desired capacity of 2 cannot be met if there are insufficient EC2 instance resources (e.g., vCPU, memory, or network capacity) in the selected Availability Zones. AWS Auto Scaling will launch as many instances as possible up to the desired capacity, but if the second instance launch fails due to a capacity constraint (e.g., insufficient m5.large capacity in the specified AZs), only one instance will be launched. The stack creation will still succeed, but the Auto Scaling group will remain at the lower count until capacity becomes available.
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.
Are there clue words in this question I should notice?
Yes — watch for: "most likely". Probability qualifier — the question wants the most probable cause or outcome, not a guaranteed one. Eliminate low-probability options.
What is the key concept behind this question?
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
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Question Discussion
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