KCNA Kubernetes Fundamentals Practice Question
A DevOps engineer wants to ensure that a critical application pod is rescheduled on a different node if its current node fails. The pod should be scheduled with a preference for nodes in a specific availability zone but can run elsewhere if needed. Which scheduling mechanism should be used?
⚠ Common exam trap
Many exam-takers confuse 'preferred' (soft) nodeAffinity with 'required' (hard) nodeAffinity, or mistakenly think DaemonSets or StatefulSets are needed for node failure recovery, when a simple Deployment with a soft scheduling preference is the correct mechanism for zone-aware rescheduling.
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 a Deployment with a preferred nodeAffinity rule.
A Deployment with a preferred nodeAffinity rule is correct because it allows the pod to be rescheduled on a different node if the current node fails, while expressing a preference for nodes in a specific availability zone. The 'preferred' (soft) rule ensures scheduling flexibility—the pod can run elsewhere if no zone-matching nodes are available—which aligns with the requirement for high availability without strict zone constraints.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Use a StatefulSet with podAntiAffinity.
Why it's wrong here
Incorrect; StatefulSet is for stateful apps, adds complexity.
- ✓
Use a Deployment with a preferred nodeAffinity rule.
Why this is correct
Correct; Deployment ensures rescheduling via ReplicaSet, nodeAffinity provides preference.
- ✗
Run a static pod defined in the kubelet configuration.
Why it's wrong here
Incorrect; static pods are not managed by the API server and won't reschedule.
- ✗
Create a DaemonSet with a nodeSelector for the zone.
Why it's wrong here
Incorrect; DaemonSet runs on every node, not a single instance.
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Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
This KCNA practice question is part of Courseiva's free CNCF 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 KCNA exam.