KCNA Cloud Native Architecture Practice Test 6 — 15 Questions

Question 1

According to the 12-factor app methodology, how should an application store configuration that varies between deployments (e.g., database connection strings)?

Accepted Answer

In environment variables. The 12-factor app recommends strict separation of config from code, storing config in environment variables.

Answer

In a configuration file that is version-controlled

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In a database table

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Hard-coded in the application code

Question 2

A team is building a serverless application using Knative. They want the application to scale to zero when idle. Which Knative resource type should they use?

Accepted Answer

Knative Serving. Knative Serving is the component that manages request-driven workloads and provides scale-to-zero (and scale-from-zero) capabilities. It deploys containerized services with automatic scaling based on incoming requests, including scaling down to zero replicas when idle.

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Knative Trigger

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Knative Build

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Knative Eventing

Question 3

What is the primary purpose of a service mesh in a cloud-native architecture?

Accepted Answer

To provide a dedicated infrastructure layer for handling service-to-service communication. A service mesh provides a dedicated infrastructure layer for managing service-to-service communication, typically using sidecar proxies. It handles traffic management, security, and observability without requiring changes to application code. This allows developers to focus on business logic while the mesh handles cross-cutting concerns.

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To compile application code

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To replace container orchestration

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To store application configuration

Question 4

In Istio, which component is responsible for enforcing traffic policies and collecting telemetry data at the pod level?

Accepted Answer

Envoy proxy. Envoy proxy is the correct answer because in Istio, each pod is deployed with an Envoy sidecar proxy that intercepts all inbound and outbound traffic. This proxy enforces traffic policies (e.g., routing rules, fault injection, rate limiting) and collects telemetry data (e.g., metrics, logs, traces) at the pod level, sending it to the observability backends. The sidecar model ensures policy enforcement and telemetry collection happen without modifying the application code.

Answer

Mixer

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Pilot

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Citadel

Question 5

Which GitOps tool is specifically designed for Kubernetes and follows the declarative GitOps pattern, continuously reconciling the desired state from a Git repository?

Accepted Answer

ArgoCD. ArgoCD is a declarative GitOps continuous delivery tool for Kubernetes that syncs application state with a Git repository.

Answer

Helm

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Terraform

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Jenkins

Question 6

An organization wants to manage infrastructure using code to ensure consistent and repeatable deployments across multiple cloud providers. Which tool is MOST suitable for this multi-cloud Infrastructure as Code approach?

Accepted Answer

Terraform. Terraform is provider-agnostic and supports AWS, Azure, GCP, and hundreds of other providers through a plugin architecture, making it the most suitable tool for defining infrastructure as code across multiple clouds with a single workflow and state model. Its HCL configuration and plan/apply cycle give consistent, repeatable deployments regardless of the target cloud.

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Kuberntes manifests

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AWS CloudFormation

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Azure Resource Manager Templates

Question 7

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?

Accepted Answer

Circuit Breaker pattern. The Circuit Breaker pattern wraps calls to a remote dependency and trips 'open' after a threshold of failures, immediately returning a fallback (stale data, cached response, or default) instead of continuing to hammer the failing API. This prevents cascading failures and gives the downstream service time to recover, while periodically probing in a 'half-open' state to test restoration. Serving stale data while the breaker is open is the classic implementation of this pattern in cloud-native apps.

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Retry pattern

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Bulkhead pattern

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Timeout pattern

Question 8

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. In an API gateway pattern, the API Gateway is the entry point that receives client requests and routes them to the appropriate backend microservice based on the request path, method, or other attributes. It acts as a reverse proxy and centralizes cross-cutting concerns such as authentication, rate limiting, and request transformation.

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Load balancer

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Service registry

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Sidecar proxy

Question 9

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.

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To run event-processing logic

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To transform events into API calls

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To store event schemas

Question 10

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 11

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 12

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.

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Reduced network latency

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Simplified compliance

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Increased vendor lock-in

Question 13

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 is a vendor-neutral organization under the Linux Foundation that hosts and promotes open source cloud native projects such as Kubernetes, Prometheus, and Envoy. Its core mission is to foster collaboration and standardization in the cloud native ecosystem by providing a neutral home for projects, not to develop proprietary software or create certification exams. Option C accurately captures this purpose.

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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 14

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 continuous delivery tool for Kubernetes that continuously monitors Git repositories and synchronizes the desired state with the cluster. It is purpose-built for GitOps workflows, automatically detecting drift and applying changes. Helm, Jenkins, and Terraform are not specifically designed for GitOps on Kubernetes.

Answer

Helm

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Jenkins

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Terraform

Question 15

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. The Config factor of the 12-factor app methodology explicitly states that configuration should be stored in environment variables, not in code or config files checked into the repository. This separates config that varies between deploys (database URLs, API keys, feature flags) from the immutable codebase, enabling the same artifact to be promoted across environments. Environment variables are language-agnostic and easily injected by the platform.

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Dependencies

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Codebase

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Backing services