KCNA Cloud Native Architecture Practice Test 10 — 15 Questions

Question 1

Which THREE of the following are core principles of cloud native computing as defined by the CNCF? (Select 3)

Accepted Answer

Dynamic orchestration. The CNCF defines cloud native as using microservices, containers, dynamic orchestration, and DevOps. The three correct options are microservices, containers, and dynamic orchestration. DevOps is also a principle, but the question asks for three; the other options are not core principles.

Answer

Waterfall development

Answer

Monolithic architecture

Question 2

Which TWO of the following are features of a service mesh like Istio or Linkerd? (Select 2)

Accepted Answer

Traffic management (routing, load balancing). Service mesh provides observability (metrics, tracing, logs) and traffic management (routing, load balancing). Auto-scaling is not a service mesh feature; it's handled by Kubernetes HPA or Knative. Service discovery is also not a direct feature of service mesh; it's typically provided by Kubernetes DNS.

Answer

Container image building

Answer

Service discovery

Answer

Auto-scaling of services

Question 3

Which of the following is a primary goal of the Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF)?

Accepted Answer

To foster and sustain the cloud-native ecosystem of open source projects. The CNCF's mission is to make cloud-native computing ubiquitous by fostering and sustaining an ecosystem of open source projects. Options A and B are incorrect because CNCF does not provide commercial support or host proprietary solutions. Option D describes a specific project goal, not the foundation's overarching purpose.

Answer

To develop the Kubernetes container orchestration platform

Answer

To host proprietary cloud-native solutions

Answer

To provide commercial support for Kubernetes

Question 4

A company wants to adopt a GitOps workflow for managing their Kubernetes clusters. Which two tools are specifically designed for implementing GitOps on Kubernetes?

Accepted Answer

Flux. ArgoCD and Flux are both CNCF projects that implement GitOps principles, synchronizing cluster state with a Git repository. Helm is a package manager, Terraform is for infrastructure provisioning (not strictly GitOps for Kubernetes), and Jenkins is a CI/CD tool that can be used with GitOps but is not purpose-built for it.

Answer

Terraform

Answer

Jenkins

Answer

Helm

Question 5

Which service mesh component is typically deployed as a sidecar proxy alongside application containers?

Accepted Answer

Envoy proxy. Envoy proxy is the most common sidecar proxy in service meshes like Istio and Linkerd. Istiod is the control plane component, Kiali is a visualization tool, and Prometheus is a monitoring system.

Answer

Kiali

Answer

Istiod

Answer

Prometheus

Question 6

A team wants to deploy a serverless function using Knative. Which core primitive does Knative rely on to run serverless workloads on Kubernetes?

Accepted Answer

Service. Knative Serving uses the 'Service' resource to manage serverless workloads. 'Deployment' is a lower-level resource, 'Function' is not a Kubernetes resource, and 'Pod' is too granular.

Answer

Pod

Answer

Deployment

Answer

Function

Question 7

In a microservices architecture, which pattern is used to prevent cascading failures by limiting the number of concurrent requests to a service?

Accepted Answer

Bulkhead. The bulkhead pattern isolates resources to prevent failure propagation. Circuit breaker stops calls after failures, retry reattempts, and timeout limits wait time.

Answer

Timeout

Answer

Retry

Answer

Circuit breaker

Question 8

You are implementing an API gateway pattern for a set of microservices. Which of the following is a typical responsibility of an API gateway?

Accepted Answer

Enforcing authentication and rate limiting. An API gateway handles cross-cutting concerns like authentication, rate limiting, routing, and aggregation. Direct database access (B) is an antipattern, managing container lifecycle (A) is Kubernetes' job, and storing application state (C) is not a gateway function.

Answer

Managing container lifecycle and scaling

Answer

Directly accessing databases to serve requests

Answer

Storing application state and session data

Question 9

Which THREE of the following are key principles of cloud-native architecture according to CNCF?

Accepted Answer

Dynamic orchestration. The CNCF defines cloud-native technologies as those that use microservices, containers, and dynamic orchestration. Serverless is an approach but not a core principle; agile development is a methodology, not unique to cloud-native.

Answer

Serverless

Answer

Agile development

Question 10

Which of the following is a benefit of using a service mesh?

Accepted Answer

It provides observability and traffic management. A service mesh provides observability, traffic management, and security (mTLS) without changing application code. It does not reduce the number of microservices, replace Kubernetes, or provide storage.

Answer

It eliminates the need for Kubernetes

Answer

It provides persistent storage for stateful applications

Answer

It reduces the number of microservices needed

Question 11

In an event-driven architecture using a message broker, which component is responsible for receiving events and forwarding them to subscribed services?

Accepted Answer

Message broker. A message broker (like Kafka or RabbitMQ) receives and forwards events. An API gateway routes HTTP requests, a service mesh handles service-to-service communication, and a load balancer distributes network traffic.

Answer

Service mesh

Answer

API gateway

Answer

Load balancer

Question 12

Which tool is used to manage infrastructure as code and can provision resources across multiple cloud providers?

Accepted Answer

Terraform. Terraform is the correct tool because it is an open-source infrastructure as code (IaC) software tool by HashiCorp that uses declarative configuration files (HCL) to provision and manage resources across multiple cloud providers (AWS, Azure, GCP, etc.) via provider plugins. Unlike single-cloud tools, Terraform's provider architecture allows it to manage heterogeneous environments consistently, making it the standard multi-cloud IaC solution.

Answer

Helm

Answer

Ansible

Answer

AWS CloudFormation

Question 13

A team is implementing a multi-cloud strategy to avoid vendor lock-in. Which Kubernetes feature is most helpful for abstracting the underlying cloud provider?

Accepted Answer

Kubernetes API. The Kubernetes API server provides a consistent interface regardless of the underlying infrastructure. Namespaces organize resources, Services provide networking abstractions, and ConfigMaps store configuration.

Answer

Services

Answer

ConfigMaps

Answer

Namespaces

Question 14

Which TWO of the following are characteristics of serverless computing?

Accepted Answer

Event-driven execution. Serverless computing is event-driven and auto-scales to zero when idle. Long-running processes are not suitable, and you do not manage the underlying servers. Reserved capacity is a concept for traditional cloud.

Answer

Manual server provisioning

Answer

Long-running processes

Answer

Reserved capacity for predictable workloads

Question 15

Which component of the Istio service mesh is responsible for certificate signing and identity management?

Accepted Answer

Citadel. Istio's security features are managed by Citadel (now part of istiod), which handles certificate signing and identity. Envoy is the proxy, Pilot provides service discovery, and Mixer was an older component for policy (now deprecated).

Answer

Envoy

Answer

Mixer

Answer

Pilot