200-901 Application Deployment and Security Practice Question
A CI/CD pipeline for a microservice application includes stages: code commit, build Docker image, push to registry, deploy to staging, run integration tests, and deploy to production. The team wants to ensure that if integration tests fail, the pipeline stops and does not proceed to production. Which CI/CD concept is used to enforce this behavior?
⚠ Common exam trap
Cisco often tests the distinction between pipeline control mechanisms (stage gates) and deployment strategies (rolling updates), so candidates mistakenly choose a deployment method when the question is about conditional pipeline flow.
Answer choices
Why each option matters
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
✓
Stage gates
Stage gates are conditional checkpoints in a CI/CD pipeline that evaluate predefined criteria before allowing the pipeline to proceed to the next stage. In this scenario, the integration test stage acts as a gate: if the tests fail, the gate blocks the pipeline from advancing to the production deployment stage, ensuring only validated code reaches production.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✓
Stage gates
Why this is correct
Stage gates are approval or quality checkpoints between pipeline stages that halt progression when a condition fails. Placing a gate after integration tests prevents deployment to production on test failure, directly enforcing the required stop behaviour.
- ✗
Rolling update
Why it's wrong here
Rolling update replaces running instances incrementally during deployment; it does not inspect integration test outcomes or block later stages. It is tempting because it governs production deployment safety, but halting on failed tests requires pipeline stage dependencies and failure propagation.
- ✗
Container orchestration
Why it's wrong here
Container orchestration schedules and manages containers across hosts; it does not sequence pipeline stages or act on test results. It is tempting because the pipeline deploys containers, but the required stop-on-failure enforcement belongs to pipeline stage gating, not the orchestrator.
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Artifact management
Why it's wrong here
Artifact management stores and versions build outputs such as Docker images; it neither evaluates test results nor halts pipeline progression. It is tempting because the pipeline pushes images to a registry, but the stop-on-failure behaviour comes from stage gating and exit codes, not artifact storage.
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Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
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