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200-901 Practice Question: A developer is building a dashboard that displays…
A developer is building a dashboard that displays the health status of network devices managed by Cisco ACI. The developer uses the ACI REST API to query the APIC (Application Policy Infrastructure Controller). The developer sends a GET request to https://apic-ip/api/class/fabricHealthInst.json returns a JSON object with health scores. The dashboard works for a small set of devices, but when scaled to 500 devices, the API responses become slower and sometimes time out. The developer needs to optimize the data retrieval to keep the dashboard responsive. Which approach should the developer use?
⚠ Common exam trap
Cisco often tests the distinction between polling (synchronous GET requests) and event-driven subscriptions (asynchronous push) to evaluate understanding of API optimization patterns, and the trap here is that candidates mistakenly think breaking requests into smaller chunks or changing languages will solve scalability issues, when the real solution is to avoid unnecessary data retrieval altogether.
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
✓
Use the ACI event subscription mechanism to receive health updates only when changes occur.
The ACI REST API supports an event subscription mechanism (e.g., WebSocket-based subscriptions) that pushes updates only when the health score of a device changes, rather than requiring the dashboard to poll the APIC repeatedly. This drastically reduces network overhead and server load, especially when scaling to 500 devices, as it eliminates the need for frequent full GET requests to /api/class/fabricHealthInst.json.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Break the request into multiple smaller requests, each fetching a subset of devices.
Why it's wrong here
This increases the number of API calls and could worsen performance.
- ✗
Add a query parameter to sort the results by health score to reduce processing time.
Why it's wrong here
Sorting still returns all data and may increase server load.
- ✗
Switch from JavaScript to Python for the backend to handle larger responses more efficiently.
Why it's wrong here
Language choice does not resolve network latency or server load issues.
- ✓
Use the ACI event subscription mechanism to receive health updates only when changes occur.
Why this is correct
Subscriptions push updates, reducing the need for frequent polling.
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Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
This 200-901 practice question is part of Courseiva's free Cisco certification practice question bank. Courseiva provides original exam-style practice questions with explanations, topic-based practice, mock exams, readiness tracking, and study analytics to help learners prepare for the 200-901 exam.