PCA Prometheus Fundamentals Practice Question
When a Prometheus server is restarted, how does it recover the in-memory data?
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
✓
It reads the WAL
It replays the Write-Ahead Log (WAL) to reconstruct the in-memory head block.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
It only keeps the last 5 minutes
Why it's wrong here
It recovers as much as the WAL contains.
- ✓
It reads the WAL
Why this is correct
The WAL stores data that hasn't been flushed to disk blocks yet.
- ✗
It queries the remote store
Why it's wrong here
Prometheus does not pull back historical data from remote stores.
- ✗
It re-scrapes all targets
Why it's wrong here
Re-scraping would lose historical data.
About these practice questions
This PCA question is part of Courseiva's 304-question bank — original exam-style content with full explanations and wrong-answer analysis, never real exam questions or exam dumps. Learn why practice questions differ from exam dumps →
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.