CV0-004 Cloud Architecture and Design Practice Test 5 — 15 Questions

Question 1

An organization is designing a VPC with public and private subnets. The web servers must be accessible from the internet, but database servers must not. The architecture also requires high availability across two Availability Zones. What is the minimum number of public subnets and private subnets needed?

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

Accepted Answer

Two public, two private. High availability across two Availability Zones requires at least one subnet per AZ for each tier. Since the architecture needs both public-facing web servers and private database servers in each AZ, the minimum is two public subnets and two private subnets — one of each per AZ.

Answer

One public, two private

Answer

Two public, one private

Answer

One public, one private

Question 2

A company hosts a web application on AWS and wants to improve latency for global users. Which service should they use to cache static content at edge locations?

Accepted Answer

AWS CloudFront. AWS CloudFront is a content delivery network (CDN) that caches static content at edge locations worldwide, reducing latency for global users. It integrates with AWS services like S3 and EC2, and supports dynamic content acceleration. The other options do not provide edge caching for static content.

Answer

Application Load Balancer

Answer

AWS Global Accelerator

Answer

Amazon Route 53

Question 3

A company is designing a hybrid cloud architecture connecting their on-premises data center to AWS. Which TWO options provide dedicated, private network connectivity? (Select TWO.)

Accepted Answer

Site-to-Site VPN. AWS Direct Connect provides dedicated private connection, and VPN over the internet can also be private if encrypted, but it's not dedicated. Site-to-Site VPN is a valid private connectivity option. Internet gateway is public, VPC peering is between VPCs, not on-premises.

Answer

Internet gateway

Answer

VPC peering

Answer

NAT gateway

Question 4

A cloud architect is evaluating a multi-cloud strategy to improve resilience. Which THREE factors should be considered when designing multi-cloud architecture? (Select THREE.)

Accepted Answer

Data transfer costs between clouds. Option B (Data transfer costs between clouds) is correct because multi-cloud designs frequently move data across provider boundaries, and egress charges plus inter-cloud transfer fees can significantly erode the cost benefits of a multi-cloud strategy, so they must be modeled during design. Option D (Application portability and interoperability) is correct because resilience in a multi-cloud architecture depends on workloads being able to run on more than one provider, which requires avoiding proprietary APIs and using portable formats such as containers, Kubernetes, and open standards. Option E (Consistent security and compliance policies across clouds) is correct because each provider implements identity, encryption, and logging differently, so a unified policy framework and controls such as federated IAM and centralized logging are needed to maintain a consistent security posture. Option A (Increased vendor lock-in) is not a valid factor because multi-cloud is generally adopted to reduce dependence on a single vendor, not to increase lock-in. Option C (Ability to manage all clouds with a single API) is not a required design factor because no single universal API natively manages AWS, Azure, and GCP; management is typically achieved through abstraction layers, IaC tools like Terraform, or multi-cloud platforms rather than one provider API.

Answer

Increased vendor lock-in

Answer

Ability to manage all clouds with a single API

Question 5

A company is designing stateless application tiers to support horizontal scaling. Which TWO design principles support statelessness? (Select TWO.)

Accepted Answer

Persist all application state in a shared database. Option A is correct because persisting all application state in a shared database externalizes state from the compute instances, so any instance can serve any request and instances can be added or replaced freely for horizontal scaling. Option C is correct because storing session state in a shared external cache such as Redis keeps session data outside the instance, allowing any instance to read the session and remain interchangeable, which is the essence of statelessness. Option B is not correct because storing configuration files locally on each instance creates per-instance state that must be synchronized and makes instances non-interchangeable. Option D is not correct because local instance storage for session data ties a user's session to a specific instance, preventing free horizontal scaling. Option E is not correct because sticky sessions (session affinity) on the load balancer deliberately pin a client to one instance, which is the opposite of stateless design and hinders horizontal scaling.

Answer

Store configuration files on each instance locally

Answer

Use local instance storage for session data

Answer

Use sticky sessions (session affinity) on the load balancer

Question 6

A company wants to migrate its on-premises virtualized workloads to the cloud while maintaining control over the operating system and middleware. Which cloud service model should they choose?

Accepted Answer

IaaS. IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service) provides virtualized compute, storage, and networking where the customer retains control over the operating system, middleware, and runtime, while the provider manages the underlying physical infrastructure. This matches the requirement to migrate virtualized workloads while keeping OS and middleware control.

Answer

SaaS

Answer

FaaS

Answer

PaaS

Question 7

An e-commerce application experiences variable traffic with sudden spikes during flash sales. The application is designed to be stateless. Which scaling approach should the cloud architect implement to handle these spikes efficiently?

Accepted Answer

Horizontal auto-scaling based on CPU utilization. Horizontal auto-scaling based on CPU utilization allows the application to dynamically add or remove instances in response to traffic spikes. Since the application is stateless, new instances can be added seamlessly behind a load balancer, providing efficient scaling during flash sales.

Answer

Vertical scaling on a single large instance

Answer

Using a load balancer with active-passive failover

Answer

Pre-provisioning a fixed cluster of instances

Question 8

A company wants to reduce cloud costs for a stateless batch processing workload that runs nightly for about 3 hours. The workload can tolerate interruptions. Which pricing model is most cost-effective?

Accepted Answer

Spot instances. Spot instances offer up to 90% discounts compared to on-demand and are ideal for interruptible, stateless batch workloads. Since the workload runs nightly for about 3 hours and can tolerate interruptions, spot instances provide the lowest cost without requiring long-term commitments. This matches the cost-effectiveness requirement precisely.

Answer

Reserved instances

Answer

Dedicated hosts

Answer

On-demand instances

Question 9

Which cloud deployment model involves connecting an on-premises data center to a public cloud provider using a VPN or dedicated connection?

Accepted Answer

Hybrid cloud. A hybrid cloud is defined by the integration of on-premises infrastructure (private cloud) with a public cloud provider, typically via a secure network connection such as a VPN or dedicated link (e.g., AWS Direct Connect, Azure ExpressRoute). This model allows workloads and data to move between environments, enabling burst capacity, disaster recovery, and gradual migration. The key differentiator is the interconnection between private and public resources, which is exactly what the question describes.

Answer

Private cloud

Answer

Multi-cloud

Answer

Public cloud

Question 10

A cloud architect is designing a VPC for a three-tier web application. The web servers must be accessible from the internet, the application servers should only be reachable from the web tier, and the database servers should not have any public IP addresses and should be isolated. Which subnet design meets these requirements?

Accepted Answer

Web tier in public subnet, app tier in private subnet, database tier in a separate private subnet with no internet gateway. A three-tier architecture requires strict network segmentation: the web tier in a public subnet with a route to an Internet Gateway for inbound traffic, the app tier in a private subnet reachable only from the web tier (via security groups or NACLs), and the database tier in a separate private subnet with no route to an Internet Gateway or NAT Gateway, ensuring complete isolation. This design enforces least-privilege network access and satisfies the stated requirements.

Answer

Web tier in public subnet, app and database tiers in the same private subnet

Answer

All servers in private subnets with a NAT gateway for inbound traffic

Answer

All servers in the same public subnet with security groups

Question 11

A cloud administrator needs to provide a shared file system that can be accessed by multiple Linux-based virtual machines in the same VPC. Which storage type should be used?

Accepted Answer

File storage. File storage provides a shared, hierarchical file system (e.g., NFS, SMB) that multiple Linux VMs in the same VPC can mount simultaneously, making it ideal for shared access. In AWS, this is Amazon EFS (Elastic File System), which supports concurrent NFS mounts across EC2 instances. Block and object storage do not natively provide a shared POSIX file system for multiple Linux hosts.

Answer

Object storage

Answer

Archive storage

Answer

Block storage

Question 12

A company is deploying a global web application that serves static content (images, CSS, JavaScript) to users worldwide. They want to reduce latency and offload traffic from the origin servers. Which service should they implement?

Accepted Answer

Content Delivery Network (CDN). A Content Delivery Network (CDN) caches static content at edge locations worldwide, reducing latency and offloading origin servers.

Answer

Auto-scaling group

Answer

VPN connection

Answer

Load balancer

Question 13

A cloud architect is deploying a web application across multiple availability zones within a single region to achieve high availability. The application requires that if one availability zone fails, traffic should automatically be rerouted to the remaining zones without manual intervention. Which configuration is required?

Accepted Answer

Active-active across availability zones with a load balancer. Deploying an active-active configuration across multiple availability zones with a load balancer ensures that traffic is automatically distributed to healthy instances. If one availability zone fails, the load balancer's health checks detect the failure and reroute traffic to the remaining zones without manual intervention, meeting the high availability requirement.

Answer

Active-passive with a standby instance in a different region

Answer

Vertical scaling of instances in a single availability zone

Answer

Cold standby with daily backups

Question 14

A company decides to use AWS for compute and Azure for storage to leverage best-of-breed services. This is an example of which cloud deployment model?

Accepted Answer

Multi-cloud. Using AWS for compute and Azure for storage means the organization is consuming services from two different public cloud providers simultaneously, which is the definition of a multi-cloud deployment. Multi-cloud is about using multiple providers, regardless of whether workloads are integrated. Hybrid cloud, by contrast, combines public cloud with private infrastructure.

Answer

Community cloud

Answer

Public cloud

Answer

Hybrid cloud

Question 15

An organization needs to recover its critical database within 15 minutes and lose at most 1 minute of data. Which configuration meets these requirements?

Accepted Answer

Hot standby with synchronous replication. Hot standby with synchronous replication ensures that every write to the primary database is also written to the standby before the transaction is acknowledged. This guarantees zero data loss (RPO=0) and, combined with automatic failover, can achieve a recovery time of under 15 minutes (RTO<15 min).

Answer

Active-active with asynchronous replication

Answer

Warm standby with hourly backups

Answer

Cold standby with daily backups