The correct architecture for SAP ASCS/ERS high availability on AWS is to deploy ASCS and ERS on separate EC2 instances in different Availability Zones, fronted by a Network Load Balancer. This design is essential because SAP’s enqueue replication mechanism (enrep) synchronizes the lock table between the two instances, enabling automatic failover without data loss only when they reside in distinct failure domains. On the AWS Certified SAP on AWS Specialty PAS-C01 exam, this question tests your understanding of the fundamental HA requirement that ASCS and ERS must never share a single Availability Zone or EC2 instance—a common trap is assuming a single AZ with a second instance suffices, which violates SAP’s split-brain prevention logic. Remember the mnemonic: “Separate Zones, Single NLB, Sync Locks” to recall that the NLB provides a stable endpoint while enrep handles state replication across AZs.
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. 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 running SAP on AWS and wants to ensure high availability for SAP Central Services (ASCS) and Enqueue Replication Server (ERS). Which architecture meets this requirement?
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
✓
Deploy ASCS and ERS on separate EC2 instances in different Availability Zones, with a Network Load Balancer.
Option C is correct because SAP Central Services (ASCS) and Enqueue Replication Server (ERS) must run on separate EC2 instances in different Availability Zones to achieve high availability. A Network Load Balancer (NLB) is used to distribute traffic and provide a single endpoint, while the enqueue replication mechanism (enrep) synchronizes the lock table between the two instances, enabling automatic failover without data loss.
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.
✗
Deploy ASCS and ERS on the same EC2 instance with S3 replication.
Why it's wrong here
Single instance does not provide HA.
✗
Configure Route 53 health checks to switch between two instances in the same AZ.
Why it's wrong here
Same AZ does not protect against AZ failure.
✓
Deploy ASCS and ERS on separate EC2 instances in different Availability Zones, with a Network Load Balancer.
Why this is correct
Multi-AZ with separate instances and NLB ensures HA.
Related concept
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
✗
Use a single EC2 instance with an S3 bucket for shared storage and Lambda for failover.
Why it's wrong here
S3 and Lambda do not provide SAP HA.
Common exam traps
Common exam trap: answer the scenario, not the keyword
The trap here is that candidates often assume ASCS and ERS can be co-located on the same instance or in the same AZ for simplicity, but the PAS-C01 exam explicitly tests the requirement for separate instances in different AZs with an NLB to meet SAP's HA architecture for critical services.
Detailed technical explanation
How to think about this question
SAP enqueue replication uses the enrep protocol to synchronize the lock table from the active ASCS to the standby ERS over a private network. The NLB uses TCP health checks on the SAP-specific ports (e.g., 32<instance-number> for ASCS) to detect failures and reroute traffic within seconds. In a real-world scenario, if the primary AZ experiences a network partition, the ERS instance in the secondary AZ can take over as the new ASCS without losing lock state, provided the enqueue replication is configured with a replication timeout (e.g., enque/table_size) and the NLB's cross-zone load balancing is disabled to preserve session stickiness.
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.
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: Deploy ASCS and ERS on separate EC2 instances in different Availability Zones, with a Network Load Balancer. — Option C is correct because SAP Central Services (ASCS) and Enqueue Replication Server (ERS) must run on separate EC2 instances in different Availability Zones to achieve high availability. A Network Load Balancer (NLB) is used to distribute traffic and provide a single endpoint, while the enqueue replication mechanism (enrep) synchronizes the lock table between the two instances, enabling automatic failover without data loss.
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
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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 ensure high availability for the SAP Central Services (ASCS) and Enqueue Replication Server (ERS). Which AWS services can be used to implement a failover cluster for ASCS and ERS? (Select THREE.)
medium
A.AWS CloudTrail
✓ B.Elastic Load Balancing
✓ C.Amazon Route 53
D.AWS Config
✓ E.Custom scripts to manage floating IP and start/stop services
Why B: Elastic Load Balancing (ELB) is correct because it can be used in conjunction with a Network Load Balancer (NLB) to provide a stable endpoint for SAP ASCS and ERS failover. The NLB supports static IP addresses and can be configured with health checks that monitor the SAP service, automatically routing traffic to the healthy node in the cluster. This eliminates the need for a traditional floating IP and integrates with AWS-native failover mechanisms.
Variation 2. A company is running SAP HANA on AWS and needs to ensure high availability for the SAP Central Services (ASCS/ERS) instance. Which TWO actions should be taken to achieve this? (Choose two.)
medium
✓ A.Configure ASCS and ERS on separate EC2 instances in different Availability Zones.
B.Use an Application Load Balancer to distribute traffic between ASCS and ERS instances.
✓ C.Use a Network Load Balancer with a floating IP address for the SAP virtual hostname.
D.Deploy both ASCS and ERS on the same EC2 instance to reduce latency.
E.Place both ASCS and ERS in the same Availability Zone to minimize network latency.
Why A: For SAP HANA high availability, the ASCS and ERS instances must run on separate EC2 instances (or separate Availability Zones) to avoid a single point of failure. Using a Network Load Balancer with a floating IP addresses for the virtual hostname ensures seamless failover. Option B (single instance) would not provide HA. Option E (using a Classic Load Balancer) is not recommended for SAP ASCS/ERS; AWS recommends NLB. Option C (single AZ) defeats HA. Option D (application-based routing) is not needed; NLB uses IP/host-based routing.
Variation 3. A company is running SAP ERP on AWS and wants to ensure high availability for the SAP Central Services (ASCS) instance. Which AWS service should be used to achieve this?
medium
A.EC2 Auto Scaling
✓ B.Elastic Load Balancer (NLB)
C.Amazon Route 53
D.AWS Global Accelerator
Why B: The correct answer is C because AWS Elastic Load Balancer (specifically Network Load Balancer) can be used to distribute traffic between ASCS instances for high availability. Option A is incorrect because AWS Global Accelerator improves performance but not high availability for ASCS. Option B is incorrect because Route 53 is for DNS and can be used for health checks but not as the primary HA mechanism for ASCS. Option D is incorrect because EC2 Auto Scaling is for scaling compute capacity, not for managing ASCS failover.
Variation 4. A company runs SAP on AWS and wants to implement a high-availability (HA) solution for SAP Central Services (ASCS/ERS) using Amazon EC2 instances. Which AWS service is essential for managing the virtual IP address (VIP) required for the HA cluster?
medium
A.AWS Global Accelerator
✓ B.Amazon Route 53
C.AWS WAF
D.Application Load Balancer
Why B: Amazon Route 53 is essential for managing the virtual IP address (VIP) required for the SAP Central Services (ASCS/ERS) HA cluster because it provides DNS-based failover. When the active ASCS instance fails, the HA cluster updates a Route 53 DNS record to point to the standby instance's IP address, effectively migrating the VIP. This allows clients to reconnect using the same DNS name without needing an elastic IP or a network-level VIP, which is not natively supported in AWS for this use case.
Variation 5. A company is migrating its SAP ERP system to AWS. The system requires high availability for the SAP Central Services (ASCS) instance. Which AWS architecture should be used to meet this requirement?
medium
✓ A.Use a multi-AZ deployment with Amazon FSx for NetApp ONTAP as a shared file system and place ASCS on two EC2 instances in different Availability Zones with an Elastic IP address.
B.Use Amazon S3 to store the ASCS configuration and launch a single EC2 instance with an Auto Scaling group.
C.Deploy ASCS on a single EC2 instance in one Availability Zone with an EBS volume snapshot for recovery.
D.Use Amazon RDS for SAP Central Services running in a Multi-AZ configuration.
Why A: Option A is correct because SAP ASCS requires a highly available shared file system and a floating IP address for failover. Amazon FSx for NetApp ONTAP provides a highly available, NFS-based shared file system that supports the SAP transport and profile directories across Availability Zones. Placing two EC2 instances in different AZs with an Elastic IP address allows the ASCS instance to be failed over manually or via a cluster manager, meeting the high availability requirement.
Variation 6. A company is migrating its SAP ERP system to AWS. The system requires high availability for the SAP central services (ASCS) and must support automatic failover. Which AWS architecture should the company use to meet these requirements?
medium
A.Configure a Network Load Balancer in front of two ASCS instances in different Availability Zones.
B.Use Amazon RDS Multi-AZ to host the SAP central services.
✓ C.Deploy ASCS on an EC2 instance in an Auto Scaling group with a lifecycle hook that triggers a Lambda function to reattach the ASCS cluster resources.
D.Run ASCS on a single EC2 instance in a single Availability Zone with an Elastic IP address.
Why C: Option A is correct because an Auto Scaling group with a lifecycle hook and custom AMI can automate the recovery of ASCS after a failure, ensuring high availability. Option B is wrong because a multi-AZ RDS instance is for databases, not ASCS. Option C is wrong because a Network Load Balancer distributes traffic but does not provide automatic failover for ASCS. Option D is wrong because a single EC2 instance in one AZ offers no high availability.
Variation 7. A company is migrating its SAP ERP system to AWS. They need to ensure high availability for the SAP Central Services (ASCS) instance. Which AWS architecture should they implement?
medium
✓ A.Configure a two-node cluster with a virtual IP (VIP) using AWS Route 53 health checks and failover
B.Run ASCS on Amazon RDS for SAP with Multi-AZ
C.Deploy ASCS on a single large EC2 instance
D.Use an Auto Scaling group with a minimum of 2 instances
Why A: ASCS high availability requires a cluster with a virtual IP address managed by a load balancer or route table update. Option A is wrong because a single instance is not HA. Option B is wrong because Auto Scaling does not handle ASCS failover properly. Option D is wrong because Multi-AZ RDS is for databases, not ASCS.
Variation 8. A company is migrating its SAP NetWeaver system to AWS and wants to implement a high-availability architecture for the SAP Central Services (ASCS) and Enqueue Replication Server (ERS). Which TWO of the following are required components in a recommended AWS HA setup for ASCS and ERS?
medium
✓ A.A shared file system (e.g., Amazon EFS) to store the SAP transport directory and global profile.
B.An Application Load Balancer to distribute traffic between ASCS and ERS instances.
✓ C.A floating IP address (using Elastic IP or Route 53 health checks) to manage the ASCS virtual hostname.
D.A read replica of the SAP HANA database to offload application traffic.
E.A secondary Windows Server Failover Cluster in a different Availability Zone.
Why A: Option A is correct because in an SAP NetWeaver high-availability architecture on AWS, a shared file system such as Amazon EFS is required to store the SAP transport directory and global profile. This ensures that both the ASCS and ERS instances can access consistent configuration and transport files, which is essential for failover and cluster operations. Without a shared file system, the instances would have divergent configurations, breaking the HA setup.
Last reviewed: Jun 24, 2026
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