KCNA Cloud Native Architecture Practice Test 5 — 15 Questions

Question 1

A cloud-native application experiences intermittent failures when calling an external API. The team implements a pattern that allows the application to temporarily stop calling the failing API and serve stale data or a fallback response. Which resiliency pattern does this describe?

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

Accepted Answer

Circuit Breaker pattern. The circuit breaker pattern prevents repeated calls to a failing service, allowing the system to degrade gracefully.

Answer

Retry pattern

Answer

Bulkhead pattern

Answer

Timeout pattern

Question 2

Which component of an API gateway pattern is responsible for routing requests to the appropriate microservice based on the request path?

Accepted Answer

API Gateway. The API gateway acts as a reverse proxy and routes requests to the correct backend service.

Answer

Load balancer

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Service registry

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Sidecar proxy

Question 3

In an event-driven architecture, what is the role of an event broker?

Accepted Answer

To intermediate between event producers and consumers. In an event-driven architecture, the event broker acts as a middleware that decouples event producers from consumers by receiving events from producers and forwarding them to interested consumers. This intermediary role ensures asynchronous communication, scalability, and fault tolerance without requiring producers and consumers to be directly aware of each other. Technologies like Apache Kafka, RabbitMQ, or cloud-native services such as AWS EventBridge exemplify this pattern.

Answer

To run event-processing logic

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To transform events into API calls

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To store event schemas

Question 4

Which TWO of the following are core principles of the 12-factor app methodology? (Select TWO.)

Accepted Answer

Strict separation of config from code. The 12-factor app methodology mandates strict separation of config from code. Config includes things like database connection strings, API keys, and environment-specific values that vary between deployments. Storing these in environment variables (or external config files not checked into version control) ensures that the same codebase can be deployed to different environments without modification, which is a core principle for cloud-native portability and security.

Answer

Manual approval for all production deployments

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Use of a single programming language across all services

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Store logs in a local file system

Question 5

Which THREE of the following are features provided by a service mesh like Istio? (Select THREE.)

Accepted Answer

Traffic routing and load balancing. Service mesh provides traffic management (routing), observability (metrics, tracing), and security (mTLS, policies).

Answer

Container image building

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Database schema migrations

Question 6

Which TWO of the following are benefits of using a multi-cloud strategy? (Select TWO.)

Accepted Answer

Improved resilience and disaster recovery. A multi-cloud strategy distributes workloads across multiple cloud providers, so if one provider experiences an outage, applications can failover to another provider, improving overall resilience and disaster recovery. Option C is correct because using multiple cloud providers prevents dependency on a single vendor's proprietary services, avoiding vendor lock-in and giving you leverage for pricing and feature negotiations.

Answer

Reduced network latency

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Simplified compliance

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Increased vendor lock-in

Question 7

Which of the following best describes the purpose of the CNCF (Cloud Native Computing Foundation)?

Accepted Answer

To host and promote open source cloud native projects. The CNCF's mission is to make cloud native computing ubiquitous by fostering and sustaining open source projects.

Answer

To develop proprietary cloud native software

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To define the 12-factor app methodology

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To provide certification exams for Kubernetes administrators

Question 8

A development team wants to implement a GitOps workflow for their Kubernetes deployments. Which tool is specifically designed for GitOps on Kubernetes?

Accepted Answer

ArgoCD. ArgoCD is a declarative GitOps tool built specifically for Kubernetes.

Answer

Helm

Answer

Jenkins

Answer

Terraform

Question 9

In the context of the 12-factor app methodology, which factor requires that an app's configuration be stored in environment variables?

Accepted Answer

Config. Factor III (Config) states that configuration should be stored in environment variables to decouple it from code.

Answer

Dependencies

Answer

Codebase

Answer

Backing services

Question 10

Which service mesh component is responsible for handling inter-service communication as a sidecar proxy?

Accepted Answer

Envoy. Envoy is the correct answer because it is the sidecar proxy component in Istio that handles all inter-service communication. It intercepts traffic between microservices and applies routing, load balancing, and security policies defined by the control plane. Envoy runs as a sidecar container alongside each service instance, managing inbound and outbound traffic at the L4/L7 layer.

Answer

Mixer

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Pilot

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Citadel

Question 11

Which of the following is a core principle of cloud native architecture as defined by the CNCF?

Accepted Answer

Microservices. Microservices are one of the key architectural principles of cloud native applications.

Answer

Monolithic design

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Single point of failure

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Manual scaling

Question 12

A team wants to manage their Kubernetes infrastructure using code. Which tool is specifically designed for Infrastructure as Code (IaC) and can manage Kubernetes resources?

Accepted Answer

Terraform. Terraform is a dedicated Infrastructure as Code (IaC) tool that uses declarative configuration files (HCL) to provision and manage cloud resources, including Kubernetes clusters and their workloads. It maintains state to track resource dependencies and can orchestrate Kubernetes resources via its Kubernetes provider, making it the correct choice for managing Kubernetes infrastructure as code.

Answer

Helm

Answer

kubectl

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Kustomize

Question 13

Which of the following patterns is used to improve resilience by isolating failures to a subset of components?

Accepted Answer

Bulkhead. The Bulkhead pattern (D) is correct because it isolates failures by partitioning resources (e.g., thread pools, connections) into separate pools for different components or services. This prevents a failure in one component from exhausting shared resources and cascading to others, directly improving resilience by containing the blast radius.

Answer

Timeout

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Retry

Answer

Circuit breaker

Question 14

In serverless computing, what is the primary characteristic of Function-as-a-Service (FaaS)?

Accepted Answer

Auto-scaling to zero. FaaS enables functions to scale automatically from zero based on demand, often event-driven.

Answer

Stateful execution

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Always running instances

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Manual scaling

Question 15

What is the primary purpose of an API gateway in a microservices architecture?

Accepted Answer

To act as a single entry point for external clients. An API gateway acts as a single entry point for clients, routing requests to appropriate microservices and providing cross-cutting concerns like authentication and rate limiting.

Answer

To manage service-to-service communication within a cluster

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To replace DNS for service discovery

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To directly connect databases to clients