200-901 Cisco Platforms and Development Practice Question
A developer is using the Meraki Dashboard API to retrieve a list of clients for a network. The API returns a 429 error. What should the developer do to handle this correctly?
⚠ Common exam trap
Cisco often tests the misconception that 429 is a transient error like a 503 Service Unavailable, leading candidates to think they can simply retry immediately or ignore it, rather than understanding that 429 specifically requires honoring the Retry-After header for rate-limit compliance.
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
✓
Wait for the number of seconds specified in the Retry-After header before retrying.
A 429 HTTP status code indicates 'Too Many Requests,' meaning the client has exceeded the rate limit imposed by the Meraki Dashboard API. The correct handling is to respect the Retry-After header, which specifies the number of seconds the client must wait before retrying the request, as per RFC 7231 Section 7.1.3. This ensures compliance with API rate limits and prevents further throttling or temporary blocking.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Ignore the error and continue, as 429 is a temporary issue.
Why it's wrong here
Continuing to send requests will likely result in further errors.
- ✓
Wait for the number of seconds specified in the Retry-After header before retrying.
Why this is correct
The Retry-After header indicates how long to wait.
- ✗
Switch to a different base URL to bypass the limit.
Why it's wrong here
The rate limit applies to the API, not the base URL.
- ✗
Increase the request rate by using multiple API keys in parallel.
Why it's wrong here
This would likely violate rate limits further.
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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.