CKAD Application Observability and Maintenance Practice Question
This CKAD practice question tests your understanding of application observability and maintenance. The scenario asks you to isolate a root cause — eliminate options that address a different problem before choosing. After answering, compare your reasoning against the explanation and wrong-answer breakdown below. Once you have made your selection, read the full explanation to reinforce the concept and understand why each distractor is designed to mislead on exam day.
You are a platform engineer managing a production Kubernetes cluster. A team deploys a stateful application called 'inventory-service' with 3 replicas using a StatefulSet. Each pod writes logs to a persistent volume via a PersistentVolumeClaim. Recently, the team reports that the application becomes unresponsive after running for a few hours. You notice that the pods are still running (READY 1/1) but the application does not respond to HTTP requests. You exec into one pod and find that the disk is 100% full. The PVC is backed by a cloud disk (e.g., AWS EBS). You check the pod's resource limits and see that memory and CPU are not exhausted. The container logs are not rotated. Which course of action should you take to resolve the immediate issue and prevent recurrence?
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
✓
Increase the size of the PVC to provide more disk space, and configure log rotation inside the container to limit log file size
Option A is correct because the immediate issue is a full disk caused by unrotated logs. Increasing the PVC size provides temporary relief, while configuring log rotation inside the container (e.g., using logrotate or the application's own rotation) prevents the disk from filling up again. This directly addresses the root cause without changing the application's logging behavior or introducing unnecessary sidecars.
Key principle: Answer the scenario, not the keyword: identify the specific constraint before choosing the most familiar-sounding option.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
✓
Increase the size of the PVC to provide more disk space, and configure log rotation inside the container to limit log file size
Why this is correct
Immediate relief via resizing; prevention via log rotation.
Related concept
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
✗
Add a sidecar container that compresses and archives logs to a remote storage every hour
Why it's wrong here
Does not free space immediately; archives may still fill disk if not removed.
✗
Change the application to log to stdout and configure Docker log rotation on the host
Why it's wrong here
Requires app change; Docker log rotation may not apply if using containerd.
✗
Configure a log rotation sidecar that writes logs to an emptyDir volume with size limit
Why it's wrong here
emptyDir is ephemeral; logs lost on restart, but app needs persistent logs.
Common exam traps
Common exam trap: answer the scenario, not the keyword
CNCF often tests the distinction between logs written to stdout (handled by container runtime) versus logs written to a file inside the container (which require explicit rotation or external management).
Detailed technical explanation
How to think about this question
StatefulSet pods with PVCs retain data across restarts, so log files accumulate indefinitely unless rotation is configured. Log rotation can be implemented via the application itself (e.g., using Python's logging.handlers.RotatingFileHandler) or a sidecar running logrotate. The PVC size increase is a temporary fix; without rotation, the disk will fill again. In production, consider using a dedicated log shipper (e.g., Fluentd) to stream logs to an external system and then delete local files.
KKey Concepts to Remember
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
Find the constraint that changes the correct option.
Eliminate answers that are true in general but not in this case.
TExam Day Tips
→Watch for words such as best, first, most likely and least administrative effort.
→Review why wrong options are wrong, not only why the correct option is correct.
Key takeaway
Answer the scenario, not the keyword: identify the specific constraint before choosing the most familiar-sounding option.
Real-world example
How this comes up in practice
A practitioner preparing for the CKAD exam encounters this exact type of scenario on the job. The correct answer here is not the most general option — it is the best answer for the specific constraint described. Answer the scenario, not the keyword: identify the specific constraint before choosing the most familiar-sounding option. Real exam questions reward reading the full scenario before eliminating options, because the constraint defines which answer fits.
Related glossary terms
Concepts from this question explained
These glossary pages explain the core terms tested in this CKAD question in full detail.
Application Observability and Maintenance — This question tests Application Observability and Maintenance — Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer..
What is the correct answer to this question?
The correct answer is: Increase the size of the PVC to provide more disk space, and configure log rotation inside the container to limit log file size — Option A is correct because the immediate issue is a full disk caused by unrotated logs. Increasing the PVC size provides temporary relief, while configuring log rotation inside the container (e.g., using logrotate or the application's own rotation) prevents the disk from filling up again. This directly addresses the root cause without changing the application's logging behavior or introducing unnecessary sidecars.
What should I do if I get this CKAD question wrong?
Identify which exam domain this question belongs to, review the core concept, then practise similar questions from the same domain.
What is the key concept behind this question?
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
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Question Discussion
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