KCNA Cloud Native Architecture Practice Test 11 — 15 Questions

Question 1

What is the primary purpose of the CNCF (Cloud Native Computing Foundation)?

Accepted Answer

To host and promote open-source cloud native projects. The CNCF hosts and nurtures open-source, vendor-neutral cloud native projects, fostering their growth and adoption.

Answer

To provide commercial support for Kubernetes

Answer

To certify cloud providers

Answer

To develop proprietary cloud software

Question 2

Which of the following best describes the 12-factor app methodology's approach to configuration?

Accepted Answer

Configuration is stored in environment variables. The 12-factor app methodology states that configuration should be stored in environment variables to separate config from code.

Answer

Configuration is hardcoded in the application code

Answer

Configuration is stored in a database and accessed at runtime

Answer

Configuration is managed by a configuration server

Question 3

In a serverless architecture using Knative, what happens to a service that has not received traffic for an extended period?

Accepted Answer

It scales down to zero replicas and is reactivated on the next request. Knative scales to zero when idle, meaning no pods are running, thus no cost incurred.

Answer

It throws an error and must be redeployed

Answer

It continues running with one replica to reduce cold start latency

Answer

It is automatically deleted

Question 4

What is the primary function of a service mesh like Istio?

Accepted Answer

To handle inter-service communication with features like traffic control and security. A service mesh provides observability, traffic management, and security for microservices communication.

Answer

To build container images

Answer

To manage container orchestration

Answer

To provide persistent storage for stateful applications

Question 5

In GitOps, what is the role of a tool like ArgoCD?

Accepted Answer

To automatically apply changes from a Git repository to a Kubernetes cluster. ArgoCD synchronizes the cluster state with the desired state defined in a Git repository.

Answer

To monitor application performance

Answer

To create Docker images from source code

Answer

To manage container registries

Question 6

Which Kubernetes resource is commonly used to implement the sidecar pattern for injecting a service mesh proxy?

Accepted Answer

MutatingAdmissionWebhook. A MutatingAdmissionWebhook intercepts Pod creation requests and automatically injects a sidecar container (e.g., Envoy or Linkerd-proxy) into the Pod spec. This is the standard mechanism used by service mesh control planes like Istio and Linkerd to transparently add the proxy without modifying application manifests.

Answer

NetworkPolicy

Answer

Service

Answer

ConfigMap

Question 7

What is the purpose of the circuit breaker pattern in a microservices architecture?

Accepted Answer

To prevent a service from being overwhelmed by requests when it is failing. The circuit breaker pattern is a stability pattern that monitors for failures and prevents a service from making requests to a failing downstream service, allowing it to recover. When the failure rate exceeds a threshold (e.g., 50% of requests fail within a 10-second sliding window), the circuit 'opens' and subsequent calls fail immediately without consuming resources. This prevents cascading failures and resource exhaustion in distributed systems like Kubernetes or Spring Cloud.

Answer

To balance load across multiple instances

Answer

To handle authentication between services

Answer

To encrypt data in transit

Question 8

Which CNCF project is a graduated project for service discovery and configuration management?

Accepted Answer

Consul. None of the listed options are CNCF graduated projects for service discovery and configuration management. Consul is a HashiCorp tool, not a CNCF project. Prometheus is for monitoring, Fluentd for logging, and Envoy is a service proxy.

Answer

Prometheus

Answer

Fluentd

Answer

Envoy

Question 9

A team wants to deploy a multi-cloud application that uses cloud-specific services. Which pattern is most appropriate?

Accepted Answer

Using cloud-agnostic abstractions and infrastructure as code across providers. Using cloud-agnostic abstractions (e.g., Kubernetes for container orchestration, Terraform for infrastructure as code) allows the team to deploy across multiple clouds while still integrating cloud-specific services via provider-agnostic interfaces or abstraction layers. This pattern reduces vendor lock-in, enables consistent deployment workflows, and supports portability without sacrificing the ability to use unique services from each cloud provider.

Answer

Single-cloud vendor lock-in to reduce complexity

Answer

Manually managing each cloud separately without automation

Answer

Only using serverless functions from one provider

Question 10

Which TWO of the following are core principles of cloud native architecture? (Choose two.)

Accepted Answer

Containerization. Containerization (Option D) is a core principle of cloud native architecture because it packages applications and their dependencies into isolated, lightweight containers, enabling consistent deployment across environments and efficient resource utilization. This aligns with the cloud native goal of portability and scalability, as containers can be orchestrated by platforms like Kubernetes to manage dynamic workloads.

Answer

Manual infrastructure provisioning

Answer

Monolithic application design

Answer

Tight coupling between services

Question 11

Which TWO of the following are common characteristics of serverless computing? (Choose two.)

Accepted Answer

Auto-scaling to zero when idle. Event-driven execution and auto-scaling to zero are key serverless characteristics.

Answer

Manual scaling based on predicted load

Answer

Always-on dedicated servers

Answer

Long-running stateful processes

Question 12

Which TWO of the following are benefits of using a service mesh? (Choose two.)

Accepted Answer

Improved observability of service-to-service communication. Service mesh provides improved observability and enables traffic management features like canary deployments.

Answer

Direct management of virtual machines

Answer

Automated container image building

Answer

Replacing the need for a container runtime

Question 13

Which THREE of the following are components of the GitOps workflow? (Choose three.)

Accepted Answer

A CI/CD pipeline that validates changes before merging. GitOps relies on a Git repository as single source of truth, a CI/CD pipeline to validate changes, and an operator to sync the cluster.

Answer

A configuration management database (CMDB)

Answer

A manual approval process for every change

Question 14

Which THREE of the following are resiliency patterns commonly used in cloud native applications? (Choose three.)

Accepted Answer

Retry. The Retry pattern is a fundamental resiliency mechanism in cloud-native applications. When a transient failure occurs (e.g., a network timeout or a temporary database unavailability), the application automatically reattempts the failed operation. This pattern is often implemented with exponential backoff and jitter to avoid overwhelming the downstream service, as seen in libraries like Netflix Hystrix or Kubernetes client-go retry logic.

Answer

Singleton pattern

Answer

Round-robin load balancing

Question 15

Which TWO of the following are examples of Infrastructure as Code (IaC) tools? (Choose two.)

Accepted Answer

Terraform. Terraform (B) is an Infrastructure as Code (IaC) tool that uses declarative configuration files (HashiCorp Configuration Language, HCL) to define and provision cloud and on-premises resources. It manages the full lifecycle of infrastructure through a state file and provider plugins, enabling version-controlled, repeatable deployments.

Answer

Docker

Answer

Kubernetes

Answer

Prometheus