CV0-004 Cloud Architecture and Design Practice Test 2 — 15 Questions

Question 1

A cloud engineer is designing a VPC in AWS for a three-tier web application. The web servers must be accessible from the internet, the application servers must be isolated from the internet but reachable by web servers, and the database servers must be isolated from both. How many subnets should be created, and which type should each be?

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

Accepted Answer

Three subnets: public for web, private for app, and private for database with stricter security groups. A three-tier architecture typically uses three subnets: public for web servers, private for application servers, and a database subnet (often private with additional restrictions). The database subnet is typically private, but the question asks for isolation, implying a separate subnet tier. A single subnet cannot provide isolation. Two subnets would combine two tiers, violating isolation.

Answer

Two subnets: public for web, private for app and database together

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One public subnet for all tiers

Answer

Four subnets: two public for redundancy, two private for app and database

Question 2

A company runs a stateless web application on AWS EC2 instances behind an Application Load Balancer. The application experiences varying traffic patterns, with spikes on weekdays. The company wants to minimize costs while ensuring performance during spikes. Which combination of purchasing options and scaling strategy is most cost-effective?

Accepted Answer

Reserved instances for baseline capacity and on-demand instances for spikes. Reserved instances provide a significant discount (up to 72%) compared to On-Demand for steady-state baseline capacity, which is predictable. For traffic spikes, On-Demand instances offer flexibility without long-term commitment and can be launched quickly to handle increased load, ensuring performance. This combination minimizes cost while maintaining performance during spikes.

Answer

Spot instances for all capacity with a large buffer

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On-demand instances for baseline and reserved instances for spikes

Answer

Reserved instances for baseline capacity and spot instances for spikes

Question 3

A company is migrating a legacy application to the cloud. The application has a stateful design and requires low-latency access to a shared file system. The application must scale horizontally to handle increased load. Which THREE of the following architectural changes should be recommended to enable horizontal scaling?

Accepted Answer

Refactor the application to be stateless. Horizontal scaling requires that any instance can handle any request without depending on local state. By refactoring the application to be stateless, session data is externalized, allowing new instances to be added or removed without affecting ongoing transactions. This eliminates the coupling between a client and a specific server, which is essential for elastic scaling in cloud environments.

Answer

Increase the size of the existing virtual machines (vertical scaling)

Answer

Use sticky sessions (session affinity) on the load balancer

Question 4

A company uses a public cloud IaaS model to host a database. They want to ensure the database remains available if an entire availability zone fails. Which configuration would provide the highest availability with automatic failover?

Accepted Answer

Deploy the database with a stand-by replica in a different availability zone using synchronous replication. Deploying a database with a stand-by replica in a different availability zone using synchronous replication ensures that all committed transactions are written to both the primary and the stand-by before acknowledging the client. This provides automatic failover with zero data loss (RPO=0) and high availability, as the stand-by replica can immediately take over if the entire availability zone fails.

Answer

Use a single database instance with automated snapshots to a different region

Answer

Deploy the database in a single availability zone with multiple EC2 instances

Answer

Use a read replica in a different region with asynchronous replication

Question 5

A company is using AWS and wants to minimize egress costs for data transferred out to the internet. Which strategy would be most effective?

Accepted Answer

Implement a CDN to cache content at edge locations. Using a CDN caches content at edge locations, reducing the amount of data transferred directly from the origin to users, thus lowering egress costs.

Answer

Use a VPN to encrypt traffic

Answer

Migrate to a different region with lower egress prices

Answer

Use a larger instance type to reduce data transfer

Question 6

A company wants to reduce its cloud storage costs for infrequently accessed data that must be retained for 7 years. Which two storage lifecycle policies should they implement? (Select TWO.)

Accepted Answer

Transition data to a lower-cost infrequent access tier after 30 days. Transitioning data to a lower-cost infrequent access tier after 30 days aligns with the requirement to reduce costs for infrequently accessed data. This lifecycle policy moves objects from a standard tier to a cheaper tier (e.g., Amazon S3 Standard-IA or Azure Cool Blob Storage) after a specified period, reducing storage costs while maintaining low-latency retrieval. Option D is correct because archiving data to cold storage after 1 year (e.g., Amazon S3 Glacier or Azure Archive Blob Storage) further reduces costs for data that is rarely accessed but must be retained for 7 years, as cold storage offers the lowest storage cost at the expense of longer retrieval times.

Answer

Move data from object storage to block storage after 30 days

Answer

Use reserved capacity for object storage

Answer

Delete all data older than 1 year

Question 7

A company is using AWS and wants to minimize costs for a batch processing workload that runs for 2 hours every night. The workload can tolerate interruptions. Which pricing model should the company choose?

Accepted Answer

Spot instances. Spot instances offer significant discounts and are suitable for fault-tolerant, interruptible workloads. The workload's short duration and tolerance for interruption make spot instances ideal for cost savings.

Answer

Dedicated hosts

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Reserved instances

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On-demand instances

Question 8

A company uses AWS and Azure for different workloads. To improve latency for global users, the company wants to direct traffic to the cloud provider and region closest to the user. Which DNS routing policy should the company implement?

Accepted Answer

Geolocation routing policy. Geolocation routing policy routes traffic based on the user's geographic location, allowing the company to direct users to the nearest provider and region.

Answer

Failover routing policy

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Weighted routing policy

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Latency routing policy

Question 9

A company is deploying a stateless application across multiple Availability Zones in AWS. The application must automatically scale based on CPU utilization. Which combination of services should the architect use to achieve this?

Accepted Answer

Auto Scaling group and Application Load Balancer. Auto Scaling groups manage instance scaling across AZs, and Application Load Balancer distributes traffic; this combination provides elasticity and high availability.

Answer

Auto Scaling group and CloudFront

Answer

Auto Scaling group and Network Load Balancer

Answer

Auto Scaling group and Classic Load Balancer

Question 10

A cloud architect is designing a disaster recovery solution for a critical database. The RTO is 4 hours and the RPO is 1 hour. Which replication strategy should the architect choose to meet these requirements?

Accepted Answer

Warm standby. Warm standby maintains a partially scaled environment with frequent replication, meeting an RPO of 1 hour and RTO of 4 hours.

Answer

Hot standby

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Active-passive

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Cold standby

Question 11

A company wants to reduce cloud storage costs for data that is accessed frequently for 30 days, then rarely accessed for 90 days, and then must be retained for 7 years for compliance. Which storage lifecycle policy should be implemented?

Accepted Answer

Standard storage for 30 days, then infrequent access for 90 days, then archive. A lifecycle policy that transitions from standard storage to infrequent access after 30 days, and then to archive after 120 days (30+90) meets the access patterns and compliance requirements.

Answer

Standard storage for 30 days, then delete

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Archive immediately for 7 years

Answer

Infrequent access immediately for 120 days, then archive

Question 12

A cloud architect is evaluating cloud deployment models for a healthcare application that must comply with data sovereignty regulations. The solution must provide the lowest latency for users in North America and Europe, and must avoid vendor lock-in. Which TWO deployment models should the architect consider? (Choose two.)

Accepted Answer

Multi-cloud. Option B (Multi-cloud) is correct because distributing workloads across two or more independent cloud providers (e.g., AWS and Azure) lets the architect place resources in North American and European regions close to users for low latency while avoiding dependence on a single vendor's proprietary services, directly addressing the anti-lock-in requirement. Option E (Hybrid cloud) is correct because combining a private/on-premises environment with public cloud lets regulated healthcare data remain under a specific jurisdiction's control for data sovereignty while public cloud regions in North America and Europe serve users with low latency, and the mix of environments reduces reliance on any one vendor. Option A (Private cloud) is not selected because a single private cloud generally cannot deliver the geographic reach needed for low latency in both North America and Europe without heavy investment, and it does not inherently avoid vendor lock-in. Option C (Public cloud) is not selected because a single public cloud provider creates vendor lock-in and may not satisfy data sovereignty constraints. Option D (Community cloud) is not selected because it is shared among organizations with common concerns and does not by itself provide the multi-region low-latency footprint or the anti-lock-in posture required.

Answer

Private cloud

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Public cloud

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Community cloud

Question 13

A financial services company requires a recovery time objective (RTO) of 15 minutes and a recovery point objective (RPO) of 5 minutes for its critical database. Which high availability architecture should they implement?

Accepted Answer

Active-passive with synchronous replication. Active-passive with synchronous replication is correct because it can achieve an RTO of 15 minutes (failover to passive node) and an RPO of 5 minutes (synchronous replication ensures zero data loss, which is better than 5 minutes). Synchronous replication writes data to both nodes before acknowledging, so the standby is always up-to-date, meeting the strict RPO. This architecture provides high availability with minimal data loss and quick recovery.

Answer

Warm standby

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Active-active with asynchronous replication

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Cold standby

Question 14

A company is designing a disaster recovery solution with a recovery time objective (RTO) of 1 hour and a recovery point objective (RPO) of 15 minutes. Which TWO strategies would meet these requirements? (Select TWO.)

Accepted Answer

Hot standby. Hot standby provides near-zero RTO and RPO, while warm standby can achieve RTO of 1 hour and RPO of 15 minutes if properly configured. Cold standby and backup/restore typically have longer RTO/RPO.

Answer

Active-active

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Backup and restore

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Cold standby

Question 15

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