CV0-004 Practice Test 32 — 15 Questions

Question 1

A cloud operations team uses a configuration management tool to apply patches to hundreds of Linux servers. Recently, the automation script that applies security patches has been failing with an error: 'Package not found.' The administrator verifies that the patch repository URL is correct and that the servers have internet access. The script runs every Sunday at 2:00 AM and the failures started two weeks ago. The failed patches are all for the latest kernel update. What should the administrator check FIRST?

Choose an answer to begin — your selection is scored in the full session.

Accepted Answer

Verify that the package cache is being updated before the installation step.. The error 'Package not found' typically indicates that the repository metadata is outdated. On many Linux systems, the local package cache (e.g., apt or yum) needs to be updated before installing new packages. The script likely needs to run an update command before attempting to install the patch.

Answer

Ensure the patch repository is reachable via DNS.

Answer

Check if the servers have sufficient disk space for the patch download.

Answer

Roll back to an earlier version of the patch script.

Question 2

A company is designing an auto-scaling solution for a stateless application. Which TWO features are essential for the application to scale horizontally without issues? (Select TWO.)

Accepted Answer

Stateless application design. Horizontal scaling requires that the application is stateless, meaning no session data is stored locally on instances, so any instance can handle any request. A load balancer is essential to distribute incoming traffic across multiple instances, ensuring no single instance is overwhelmed and that requests can be sent to any available instance. In contrast, stateful session management (B) and local storage (C) would tie data to specific instances, preventing seamless scaling. Vertical scaling (D) is about increasing resources of existing instances, not adding more instances horizontally.

Answer

Stateful session management

Answer

Use of local storage for application data

Answer

Vertical scaling on the existing instances

Question 3

A cloud architect is designing a multi-account AWS environment and wants to deploy CloudFormation stacks consistently across many accounts. The architect needs a solution that can manage stack instances across multiple accounts and Regions from a single administrator account. Which AWS feature should be used?

Accepted Answer

Stack sets. AWS CloudFormation StackSets allow you to deploy stacks across multiple accounts and Regions from a single administrator account. They are designed for consistent, scalable deployments, enabling you to create, update, or delete stacks in many accounts simultaneously using a single CloudFormation template and set of parameters.

Answer

Drift detection

Answer

Nested stacks

Answer

Change sets

Question 4

A company recently migrated its on-premises backup server to a cloud virtual machine running Windows Server with a dedicated data disk for backups. The backup software is configured to write to a folder on the data disk. After two weeks, the backup jobs start failing with 'disk full' errors. The cloud engineer logs into the VM and verifies that the data disk has 500 GB of total space and the backup folder shows only 300 GB used. However, the operating system reports the disk as 100% full. The engineer also notices that the recycle bin on the data disk appears to be empty. Which of the following is the MOST likely cause of the discrepancy?

Accepted Answer

Shadow copies (Volume Shadow Copies) are consuming space on the data disk. Volume Shadow Copies (VSS snapshots) on the data disk are consuming the missing ~200 GB. When backup software or Windows features create shadow copies, the space is reserved in the System Volume Information folder and is not visible in Explorer or counted against the backup folder's reported usage. The disk therefore shows 100% full even though the backup folder only reports 300 GB.

Answer

The cloud provider has imposed a quota on the disk's storage capacity that is lower than the provisioned size

Answer

The recycle bin on the data disk contains deleted backup files that are not counted

Answer

The backup software is compressing data, causing the disk to appear full due to index fragmentation

Question 5

A cloud administrator cannot deploy a new VM from a custom image. The deployment fails with an error stating 'Incompatible hypervisor version'. What is the most likely cause?

Accepted Answer

The image was created on a newer hypervisor than the current host.. The error 'Incompatible hypervisor version' indicates that the custom image was created on a hypervisor version that is newer than the one on the host where deployment is attempted. Hypervisors like VMware ESXi, Hyper-V, or KVM have version-specific features and virtual hardware compatibility; an image from a newer version may not be supported on an older host.

Answer

The VM's virtual hardware version is too old.

Answer

The image file is corrupt.

Answer

The storage backend does not support the image format.

Question 6

A cloud architect is designing a deployment strategy for a web application that must handle unpredictable traffic spikes. The application runs in containers on a Kubernetes cluster. The architect wants to minimize costs while ensuring that the cluster can scale out rapidly during spikes. Which deployment strategy best meets these requirements?

Accepted Answer

Implement horizontal pod autoscaling based on CPU utilization.. Horizontal Pod Autoscaling (HPA) automatically adjusts the number of pod replicas based on observed CPU utilization (or custom metrics), enabling rapid scale-out during traffic spikes without manual intervention. This minimizes costs by running only the necessary pods during low traffic while ensuring the cluster can react quickly to increased demand, which aligns with the requirement for unpredictable spikes.

Answer

Pre-provision a fixed number of pods to handle peak load at all times.

Answer

Manually scale the deployment when monitoring alerts indicate high traffic.

Answer

Use vertical pod autoscaling to increase resource limits on existing pods.

Question 7

A company wants to move its on-premises web application to the cloud with minimal code changes to reduce risk. Which deployment strategy is most appropriate?

Accepted Answer

Rehost. The Rehost (lift-and-shift) strategy is most appropriate because it moves the on-premises web application to the cloud with minimal code changes, directly reducing risk. By migrating the existing virtual machines or physical servers to cloud instances (e.g., AWS EC2 or Azure VMs) without modifying the application architecture, the company preserves the current codebase and operational behavior. This approach avoids the complexity and potential errors associated with rewriting or refactoring code, making it the safest choice for a risk-averse migration.

Answer

Refactor

Answer

Replatform

Answer

Rebuild

Question 8

A cloud engineer is responsible for securing a multi-tier application deployed on IaaS. The application consists of web servers, application servers, and database servers. The engineer needs to implement network segmentation to minimize the attack surface. Which of the following is the BEST approach?

Accepted Answer

Create separate subnets for each tier and configure security groups to allow only required traffic between them.. Creating separate subnets for each tier enforces network segmentation at the IP layer, which is a fundamental security best practice for multi-tier applications. By configuring security groups (stateful firewalls) to allow only the specific required traffic (e.g., HTTP/HTTPS from web to app, SQL from app to database), the engineer minimizes the attack surface by preventing lateral movement if one tier is compromised. This approach aligns with the principle of least privilege and is the most effective method in IaaS environments like AWS, Azure, or GCP.

Answer

Use a single security group for all instances and define rules to allow traffic between tiers.

Answer

Place web servers in a public subnet and application and database servers in the same private subnet with a common security group.

Answer

Place all instances in the same subnet and use network ACLs to restrict traffic between tiers.

Question 9

A company is migrating a 50 TB on-premises database to AWS RDS MySQL. The migration must have minimal downtime and support ongoing replication during the cutover. The database schema is standard MySQL. Which combination of services should the company use?

Accepted Answer

AWS Database Migration Service (DMS) with Change Data Capture (CDC) replication. AWS DMS with Change Data Capture (CDC) performs the initial full load and then continuously replicates ongoing changes from the source MySQL to RDS MySQL, enabling minimal-downtime cutover. Because the schema is standard MySQL, no schema conversion is needed, and CDC keeps the target in sync until the application is switched over.

Answer

AWS DMS with schema conversion tool to convert to MySQL

Answer

AWS Snowball Edge to transfer database dump, then import to RDS

Answer

AWS DataSync to transfer database files to S3, then restore to RDS

Question 10

A company is using Azure VMs and wants to centralize logs from multiple applications for security analysis. The logs must be retained for 2 years. Which Azure service should they use?

Accepted Answer

Azure Log Analytics. Azure Log Analytics is the service designed to collect, store, and query log data from multiple sources, including applications, VMs, and Azure resources. It supports configurable retention (including long-term retention beyond the default 30 days) and provides KQL-based querying for security analysis. This makes it the correct choice for centralizing logs with a 2-year retention requirement.

Answer

Azure Activity Log

Answer

Azure Application Insights

Answer

Azure Storage Analytics

Question 11

A company wants to implement a disaster recovery strategy with an RTO of 15 minutes and an RPO of 1 minute for a critical database. Which approach should be used?

Accepted Answer

Cross-region continuous replication with automatic failover. The requirement is an RTO of 15 minutes and an RPO of 1 minute. Cross-region continuous replication with automatic failover provides near-zero RPO (often seconds) and rapid RTO (minutes) by continuously replicating data and automatically promoting a standby in another region. This is the only option that can meet both the 1-minute RPO and 15-minute RTO.

Answer

Scheduled snapshots every hour

Answer

Daily snapshots copied to another region

Answer

Weekly full backups to tape stored offsite

Question 12

An organization wants to automate patching of their EC2 instances running Windows Server. They need to schedule patching during a maintenance window and ensure minimal downtime. Which AWS service should they use?

Accepted Answer

AWS Systems Manager Patch Manager. AWS Systems Manager Patch Manager automates patching and can be scheduled via maintenance windows.

Answer

AWS OpsWorks

Answer

Amazon Inspector

Answer

AWS CloudFormation

Question 13

A cloud administrator is optimizing costs for a batch processing workload that runs nightly for 2 hours. The workload can tolerate interruptions. Which THREE purchasing options should the administrator consider? (Choose three.)

Accepted Answer

Preemptible VMs. Correct answer: Preemptible VMs, Spot instances, and On-demand instances. For a batch processing workload that runs nightly for only 2 hours and can tolerate interruptions, cost optimization favors using interruptible instances like Preemptible VMs (Google Cloud) or Spot instances (AWS/Azure) because they offer significant discounts and are suitable for fault-tolerant workloads. On-demand instances are also an option to consider when interruptible instances are not available or if the workload requires guaranteed capacity, though they are more expensive. Reserved instances or dedicated hosts are not cost-effective for such short, periodic workloads because they require long-term commitments (1 or 3 years) and are designed for steady-state usage. Therefore, the three options to consider are Preemptible VMs, Spot instances, and On-demand instances.

Answer

Dedicated hosts

Answer

Reserved instances

Question 14

A cloud administrator notices that a storage bucket in a cloud object storage service is publicly accessible. The bucket contains sensitive customer data. What is the most likely cause of this issue?

Accepted Answer

The bucket policy or ACL was set to allow public access.. The most likely cause is that the bucket policy or ACL was misconfigured to allow public access. Option A correctly identifies this. Option B is incorrect because versioning does not affect access permissions. Option C is incorrect because lifecycle policies manage object transitions, not access. Option D is incorrect because server-side encryption does not control public access.

Answer

The bucket has versioning enabled.

Answer

The bucket has a lifecycle policy to transition objects to archival storage.

Answer

The bucket is using server-side encryption with customer-provided keys.

Question 15

A company stores sensitive data in a cloud object storage. They want to ensure that data is automatically deleted after a retention period of 7 years to comply with legal requirements. Which feature should be used?

Accepted Answer

Lifecycle policy with expiration.. Lifecycle policies can automatically expire objects after a specified number of days.

Answer

Versioning with delete markers.

Answer

Object lock with retention mode.

Answer

Compliance policy rules.