CV0-004 Practice Test 40 — 15 Questions

Question 1

A company uses Terraform to manage infrastructure as code. After running terraform apply, the state file is stored locally. The team wants to enable collaboration by storing state remotely with locking to prevent concurrent modifications. Which backend should be configured?

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

Accepted Answer

S3 with DynamoDB locking. S3 provides a scalable, durable remote backend for Terraform state, and DynamoDB locking prevents concurrent modifications by acquiring a lock via a DynamoDB table before state operations. This combination is the standard AWS-native solution for team collaboration, as it supports state versioning, encryption, and consistent locking via DynamoDB's conditional writes.

Answer

Consul

Answer

HTTP

Answer

local

Question 2

A Kubernetes StatefulSet is deployed to run a database. The pods are stuck in pending state. The administrator checks and finds that the PersistentVolumeClaim is not bound to any PersistentVolume. Which of the following is the MOST likely cause?

Accepted Answer

The PV is already bound to another PVC.. When a PersistentVolumeClaim (PVC) remains unbound, the most common cause is that no PersistentVolume (PV) matches its requirements. If a PV is already bound to another PVC, it cannot be reused unless released and reclaimed. This leaves the PVC in a pending state, preventing the StatefulSet pods from starting.

Answer

The PVC and PV have different access modes.

Answer

The PVC requests storage size that exceeds available PV capacity.

Answer

The storage class provisioner is not installed.

Question 3

A cloud administrator notices that a virtual machine is consuming excessive CPU resources with no apparent workload. Which of the following should the administrator investigate FIRST to determine the cause?

Accepted Answer

A runaway process inside the VM. A runaway process inside the VM is the most likely cause when a VM exhibits high CPU utilization without an apparent workload. This could be due to a background service, malware, or an application stuck in an infinite loop. Option A is incorrect because a misconfigured load balancer would direct traffic to the VM, which would result in network and CPU activity associated with processing that traffic, not idle high CPU. Option B is incorrect; CPU hotplug settings affect the ability to add CPUs but do not themselves cause high CPU usage. Option D is incorrect; memory overcommitment affects memory availability, not CPU utilization.

Answer

A misconfigured load balancer sending traffic to the VM

Answer

CPU hotplug settings on the hypervisor

Answer

Memory overcommitment ratio

Question 4

A cloud orchestration template fails to deploy resources with the error 'Resource limit exceeded'. The administrator has enough quota for all services. What is the most likely cause?

Accepted Answer

A specific resource type has reached its service limit.. Certain resource types have service-specific limits that are separate from the overall account quota. Even if the administrator has enough total quota, a specific resource type (e.g., virtual machines, storage accounts) may have reached its maximum allowed count. Option A is incorrect because a syntax error would cause a different error, such as parsing failure. Option C is incorrect because a corrupted image would typically result in image-related errors. Option D is incorrect because permission issues would generate an access denied error, not 'Resource limit exceeded'.

Answer

The template has a syntax error in the JSON.

Answer

The custom image used is corrupted.

Answer

The IAM role used does not have permission to create resources.

Question 5

Which TWO are common causes of virtual machine performance degradation in a cloud environment?

Accepted Answer

Insufficient memory allocation. The correct answers are B and E. Insufficient memory allocation causes the VM to use swap space, significantly degrading performance. High CPU ready time indicates that the VM is waiting for CPU resources due to contention, another common cause of performance degradation. Security groups (A) affect access control, not performance. Network latency to storage (C) can impact storage performance but is not as common as CPU/memory issues. Incorrect DNS settings (D) cause name resolution failures, not performance degradation.

Answer

Misconfigured security groups

Answer

Network latency to storage

Answer

Incorrect DNS settings

Question 6

A company uses a cloud-based load balancer to distribute traffic to web servers. Recently, a new security policy was applied that restricts traffic to certain geographic regions. Users from an allowed region report they cannot access the website. The load balancer status shows health checks are passing. What should the administrator check?

Accepted Answer

The load balancer's access control lists (ACLs). Geographic restrictions on a load balancer are typically implemented via access control lists (ACLs). Since health checks are passing, the web servers are functional, so the issue lies in the load balancer's ACLs blocking traffic from the allowed region. Option A is wrong: DNS resolution would affect all users similarly, not just those from a specific region. Option B is wrong: SSL certificate issues would generate browser warnings or errors, not complete inaccessibility. Option C is wrong: web server logs are irrelevant as the traffic is not reaching the servers due to the ACL block.

Answer

The DNS resolution for the website

Answer

The SSL certificate expiration

Answer

The web server logs for application errors

Question 7

Which of the following is a benefit of using a Web Application Firewall (WAF)?

Accepted Answer

Filtering malicious HTTP/HTTPS traffic to a web application. WAFs protect web applications from common attacks like SQL injection, cross-site scripting, and other OWASP Top 10 threats by filtering and monitoring HTTP/HTTPS traffic.

Answer

Encrypting data at rest in a database

Answer

Protecting against DDoS attacks at the network layer

Answer

Managing user identities and access

Question 8

A cloud instance fails to initialize. The cloud-init log shows the error above. Which of the following is the most likely cause?

Accepted Answer

The launch template specifies a block device mapping that is not attached to the instance.. The error 'No such device' indicates that the device specified in the block device mapping does not exist on the instance. Option D is correct because the launch template likely references a block device mapping for a device that is not actually attached (e.g., an ephemeral disk or misconfigured EBS volume). Option A is incorrect because an unformatted filesystem would produce a different error (e.g., 'mount: unknown filesystem type'). Option B is incorrect because if the disk were not attached at all, the device path would not appear in the system, but the error references a specific device path that is missing. Option C is incorrect because a corrupted partition table would yield errors like 'invalid partition table', not 'No such device'.

Answer

The filesystem on /dev/xvdb1 is not formatted with a recognized filesystem.

Answer

The disk is not attached to the instance at all.

Answer

The partition table on /dev/xvdb1 is corrupted.

Question 9

A cloud engineer is troubleshooting a storage performance issue. The storage is backed by a SAN with a mix of SSD and HDD drives. Which of the following metrics would BEST indicate that the storage subsystem is the bottleneck?

Accepted Answer

High disk queue depth and latency. High disk queue depth and latency directly indicate that I/O requests are waiting, which is a classic sign of a storage bottleneck. Low memory usage (A) does not indicate a storage issue. High network utilization (B) could be caused by storage traffic but does not confirm the storage subsystem is the bottleneck; it could be normal. High CPU utilization (D) points to compute, not storage.

Answer

Low memory usage on the hypervisor

Answer

High network utilization on storage network links

Answer

High CPU utilization on all application servers

Question 10

A company is considering using a public cloud provider. Which TWO characteristics are typical of a public cloud deployment? (Select TWO.)

Accepted Answer

Resources are shared among multiple customers. A public cloud is characterized by multi-tenancy (resources shared among multiple customers) and pay-as-you-go pricing, where the customer pays only for the resources they use. Options C and D describe these typical characteristics. Option A is incorrect because the cloud provider manages the physical infrastructure, not the customer. Option B describes a private cloud, which is isolated to a single organization. Option E describes on-premises deployment, not public cloud.

Answer

The customer has full control over the physical infrastructure

Answer

The deployment is isolated to a single organization

Answer

Resources are hosted on-premises

Question 11

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 12

An organization is migrating to AWS and wants to optimize costs for a production database that runs 24/7. Which TWO pricing models would provide the most cost savings while ensuring the database is not interrupted? (Select TWO.)

Accepted Answer

Reserved instances. Reserved Instances provide significant discounts for steady-state workloads like a production database that runs 24/7. Compute Savings Plans offer flexible, cost-effective pricing across instance families with a commitment to consistent usage. Both ensure uninterrupted operation because they guarantee capacity and are not subject to interruption. On-demand (B) is more expensive for long-term use, Spot instances (D) can be terminated without notice, and Dedicated hosts (A) are primarily for licensing or compliance requirements and are typically more costly.

Answer

Dedicated hosts

Answer

On-demand instances

Answer

Spot instances

Question 13

A cloud database cluster is experiencing replication lag. The primary node shows high write activity, and the replicas are on different availability zones. Which of the following is the most likely cause?

Accepted Answer

Network latency between the primary and replica zones is high.. Network latency between availability zones is a common cause of replication lag in asynchronous replication setups, especially when the primary has high write activity. Option A is incorrect because synchronous replication would cause the primary to wait for acknowledgment from replicas, leading to write slowdown rather than lag on replicas. Option C is incorrect because insufficient storage on replicas would typically cause disk-full errors, not replication lag. Option D is incorrect because vCPU over-allocation on the primary primarily affects compute performance, not the replication process which is more sensitive to network and disk I/O.

Answer

Replication is configured as synchronous.

Answer

The replica nodes have insufficient storage.

Answer

The primary node's vCPU is over-allocated.

Question 14

A cloud architect is designing a multi-tier application on a public cloud. To minimize costs while maintaining performance for variable workloads, the architect decides to use a mix of reserved and spot instances. Which design principle is being applied?

Accepted Answer

Cost optimization. Using a mix of reserved and spot instances directly reduces compute costs by committing to predictable workloads with reserved instances (which offer significant discounts over on-demand) and using spot instances for fault-tolerant, flexible workloads at steep discounts (often 60-90% off on-demand). This hybrid approach is a core cost optimization strategy in public cloud design, as it balances upfront commitment with opportunistic savings without sacrificing performance for variable workloads.

Answer

Scalability

Answer

High availability

Answer

Security

Question 15

A company is deploying a web application on Google Cloud that requires low-latency access to static content (images, CSS) for global users. The application also needs to handle SSL termination to reduce load on backend instances. Which TWO services should the architect use? (Select TWO.)

Accepted Answer

Cloud CDN. Cloud CDN (Option C) is correct because it uses Google's global edge cache to deliver static content (images, CSS) with low latency by caching content at points of presence (PoPs) close to users. Cloud Load Balancing (Option D) is correct because it provides global anycast-based load balancing with integrated SSL termination, offloading the SSL/TLS handshake from backend instances and reducing their CPU load.

Answer

Compute Engine with enhanced network

Answer

Cloud Functions

Answer

Cloud Storage