PCA Instrumentation And Exporters Practice Question
A developer wants to track the total number of requests received by a web service. Which metric type is most appropriate for this requirement?
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
✓
Counter
Counters are cumulative metrics that represent a single monotonically increasing counter whose value can only increase or be reset to zero on restart. This is ideal for request counts.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
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Summary
Why it's wrong here
Summaries are similar to histograms but calculate streaming quantiles on the client side.
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Counter
Why this is correct
Counters are the correct metric type for tracking total increments like request counts.
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Histogram
Why it's wrong here
Histograms are used for sampling observations and calculating quantiles or averages over time.
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Gauge
Why it's wrong here
Gauges represent values that can go up and down, such as memory usage or queue depth.
About these practice questions
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JA
Written and reviewed by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
Last reviewed August 2026 · checked against the official CNCF / Linux Foundation exam blueprint
This PCA practice question is part of Courseiva's free CNCF / Linux Foundation 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 PCA exam.