KCNA · domain
Cloud Native Application Delivery
Cloud Native Application Delivery covers how applications are packaged, deployed, and kept in sync on Kubernetes. Questions test Deployments, rollouts and rollbacks, troubleshooting Pods stuck in CrashLoopBackOff, GitOps reconciliation with Argo CD or Flux, and feature-flag tooling such as OpenFeature or Flagsmith. Expect drag-and-drop ordering, multi-select, and tool-identification items.
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What to know about Cloud Native Application Delivery
Be able to order CrashLoopBackOff troubleshooting, explain Deployment rollout and rollback behavior, and match GitOps and feature-flag tools to their use cases. The key is understanding that GitOps agents continuously reconcile live cluster state to the Git-declared desired state.
Deployment objects managing ReplicaSets, rolling updates, rollbacks, and declarative desired state
Ordering kubectl troubleshooting steps for a Pod in CrashLoopBackOff, from describe to logs to events
GitOps tools like Argo CD and Flux continuously reconciling cluster state with a Git repository
Feature-flag management for cloud-native microservices, including OpenFeature and dedicated flag services
Why learners struggle
Why Cloud Native Application Delivery questions are commonly missed
NAT questions are missed when learners confuse the four address types (inside local, inside global, outside local, outside global) or misapply the interface direction. A translation rule can look correct but still fail if the ACL, interface, or direction is wrong.
- ·Inside local vs inside global — inside local is the private source, inside global is the translated public address
- ·PAT overloads — many sources share one public IP using unique port numbers
- ·Interface direction — ip nat inside and ip nat outside must be on the correct interfaces
- ·Static NAT vs dynamic NAT vs PAT — each serves a different use case
- ·The NAT ACL identifies traffic to translate, not traffic to permit or deny
- ·A missing translation can look like a routing problem if the interfaces are misconfigured
Watch out for
Common Cloud Native Application Delivery exam traps
- ▸Confusing Deployments with ReplicaSets or StatefulSets, and missing that Deployments own ReplicaSets and support rollback history.
- ▸Troubleshooting CrashLoopBackOff by deleting the Pod first instead of inspecting describe, logs, and events to find the root cause.
- ▸Assuming GitOps pushes changes with kubectl or CI, rather than an in-cluster agent pulling and reconciling desired state from Git.
Question index
All Cloud Native Application Delivery questions (87)
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Which command is used to rollback a Helm release to a previous revision?
Easy2In the context of DORA metrics, which metric measures how often an organization successfully releases to production?
Medium3During a canary deployment using Argo Rollouts, how does the tool determine the success of the canary before promoting it?
Medium4Which THREE of the following are features of Helm that facilitate release management? (Choose three.)
Hard5An organization uses Flux with Kustomize to manage their Kubernetes applications. They want to automatically update their deployment when a new container image is pushed to the registry. Which Flux component should they use?
Hard6Drag and drop the steps to scale a Kubernetes Deployment horizontally into the correct order.
Medium7A CI pipeline builds a container image and tags it only as latest before pushing to a registry. A release engineer needs to deploy a specific, immutable version and be able to roll back to a known good build. What is the best practice to adopt?
Medium8A team is deploying a microservice application on Kubernetes. They want to ensure that during rolling updates, the new version of the service receives traffic only after the readiness probe succeeds. However, they observe that the old pods are terminated before the new pods are ready, causing a brief downtime. Which configuration change should they make to the Deployment to prevent this?
Hard9Which TWO statements about GitOps are correct?
Medium10Which deployment strategy updates pods incrementally, replacing old pods with new ones while ensuring availability?
Easy11What is the primary purpose of a continuous integration (CI) pipeline in cloud native application delivery?
Easy12A team wants to use feature flags to control the rollout of a new feature in a Kubernetes-deployed microservice. Which tool is specifically designed for managing feature flags in cloud-native applications?
Hard13A team uses Helm to manage their Kubernetes applications. They need to upgrade a release and want to reuse the values from the previous release while overriding a specific value. Which helm command should they use?
Medium14A Kubernetes cluster runs a critical application that must be updated with zero downtime. The team wants to gradually shift traffic from the old version to the new version over a period of time. Which deployment pattern is MOST appropriate?
Hard15Which TWO of the following are capabilities of ArgoCD? (Choose two.)
Medium16Which Helm command is used to upgrade a release to a newer version of a chart?
Easy17In a Helm chart, which file is used to define default configuration values that can be overridden by users during installation?
Medium18Which TWO statements are true about Kustomize? (Choose 2)
Medium19What is the primary purpose of a container registry in the CI/CD pipeline?
Easy20What is the purpose of values.yaml in a Helm chart?
Easy21In Kustomize, what is the purpose of an overlay?
Medium22A DevOps team wants to implement GitOps for their Kubernetes cluster. Which tool is specifically designed for Kubernetes GitOps and can automatically sync the cluster state with a Git repository?
Medium23Which TWO of the following are benefits of using Helm for application delivery?
Easy24Which TWO of the following are characteristics of Kustomize?
Medium25Which THREE are examples of DORA metrics used to measure DevOps performance? (Choose 3)
Medium26A platform team uses Argo CD to manage a Kubernetes cluster. A developer manually edits a Deployment's replica count from 3 to 5 using kubectl, bypassing Git. Argo CD detects the drift and its sync policy is set to automated with self-heal enabled. What happens next?
Medium27Drag and drop the steps to create a ConfigMap from a file in Kubernetes into the correct order.
Medium28A team uses ArgoCD with a Git repository that contains Helm charts. They want ArgoCD to automatically sync when a new image tag is pushed to the container registry. Which approach should they use?
Hard29A team uses Flux with the Source Controller and Kustomize Controller. They update a YAML file in Git to change a Deployment's replica count. What describes the synchronization flow?
Hard30Drag and drop the steps to troubleshoot a Pod stuck in CrashLoopBackOff into the correct order.
Medium31Which TWO of the following are deployment patterns that can be used to update applications with minimal downtime? (Choose two.)
Medium32Which deployment strategy is characterized by gradually shifting traffic from an old version to a new version of an application, often requiring a service mesh or ingress controller to manage traffic splitting?
Medium33A microservice application is experiencing high latency during traffic spikes. The team identifies that the database connection pool is exhausted. They want to implement a pattern that helps decouple the microservice from direct database connections and smooth out traffic bursts. Which design pattern should they apply?
Hard34In GitOps with ArgoCD, what does 'self-healing' refer to?
Easy35Which DORA metric measures the percentage of deployments that cause a failure in production?
Easy36In a blue-green deployment strategy, at any given time, only one environment (blue or green) is active. What is the primary advantage of this approach?
Medium37In GitOps with ArgoCD, what happens when the desired state in Git differs from the live state in the cluster?
Medium38Match each Kubernetes storage concept to its description.
Medium39A delivery team's manifests are nearly identical across dev, staging, and production, differing only in replica counts, image tags, and resource limits. They want to keep one shared base and apply environment-specific changes without introducing a templating language. Which approach fits best?
Medium40A startup wants to minimize downtime during application updates in Kubernetes. Which deployment strategy should they use?
Easy41Drag and drop the steps to create a Kubernetes deployment using kubectl into the correct order.
Medium42A container image is being pushed to a private registry. What is the correct workflow?
Medium43A platform team wants to package a Kubernetes application — including its Deployment, Service, ConfigMap, and default configuration values — into a single versioned artifact that can be installed and rolled back as one unit. Which cloud native tool is purpose-built for this?
Easy44A team uses a CI pipeline that builds a container image, scans it for vulnerabilities, and then pushes it to a registry. The scan reports a critical vulnerability in a library used by the application. The team wants to prevent images with critical vulnerabilities from being deployed to production. Which approach best enforces this policy in a Kubernetes-native way?
Hard45A platform team wants to package a multi-service application into a single distributable artifact that includes Kubernetes manifests, default configuration values, and a version number. Which tool is purpose-built for this task?
Easy46What is Helm's role in Kubernetes?
Easy47In a CI pipeline, image scanning is integrated to detect vulnerabilities. What is the best practice when a critical vulnerability is found in a base image?
Hard48A team is using Kustomize to manage configurations for different environments. They want to create a variant of a base deployment that uses a different number of replicas. Which Kustomize feature should they use?
Medium49A platform team is standardizing on Kubernetes-native delivery. They want to adopt practices that make releases repeatable and reduce drift between environments. Which two practices best support that goal? (Choose two.)
Medium50What is the primary advantage of using Helm to package a Kubernetes application?
Easy51A Kubernetes Deployment is configured with 'strategy.type: RollingUpdate'. The team wants to ensure that during an update, no more than 25% of pods are unavailable at any time. Which specification should be added?
Hard52Which TWO actions can improve the DORA metric 'Mean Time to Recovery (MTTR)'?
Medium53What is the primary purpose of a container registry in a CI/CD pipeline?
Easy54Which THREE of the following practices are essential for a secure cloud native CI/CD pipeline?
Hard55A developer needs to run a one-off database migration job in a Kubernetes cluster and ensure it completes successfully before a new application version is rolled out. Which Kubernetes resource should be used for the migration task?
Easy56In a CI/CD pipeline, what is the difference between continuous delivery and continuous deployment?
Easy57Which THREE of the following are important security practices in a container image CI/CD pipeline?
Medium58A development team wants to package and deploy a multi-tier application to Kubernetes. They need to template Kubernetes manifests with environment-specific values and manage releases with versioning and rollback capabilities. Which tool is purpose-built for this?
Easy59Which TWO statements are true about Kubernetes Deployments?
Medium60A team manages a multi-service application with Helm. Each service has its own ConfigMap, Deployment, and Service. The manifests for all services are almost identical except for the image tag and service name. They want to create a single reusable Helm chart that deploys all services from one values file, avoiding duplicate YAML. Which Helm feature should they use to loop over a list of services in the chart templates?
Medium61What is the primary purpose of continuous integration (CI) in a cloud-native application delivery pipeline?
Easy62Which TWO of the following are benefits of using Helm for managing Kubernetes applications?
Medium63When using Kustomize, how do you apply a common label to all resources in the base?
Hard64Which DORA metric measures how quickly code changes are deployed to production?
Medium65Which TWO of the following are benefits of implementing progressive delivery techniques (e.g., canary releases)?
Easy66A company is adopting a GitOps workflow for their Kubernetes deployments. They want to ensure that the cluster state always matches the desired state defined in a Git repository. Which tool is specifically designed for this purpose?
Medium67Which of the following are core components of the Flux GitOps toolkit?
Hard68A CI/CD pipeline includes image scanning. What is the primary security benefit of scanning container images in the CI phase?
Medium69Which THREE are common features of progressive delivery?
Hard70A team wants to implement a canary deployment strategy for their Kubernetes application. Which tool is specifically designed for progressive delivery and can be used to automate canary rollouts?
Medium71A team is adopting a GitOps workflow with Argo CD to manage Kubernetes applications. They want to ensure that the cluster state always matches the desired state in Git and that changes are automatically applied. Which two Argo CD features should they configure? (Choose two.)
Medium72In Flux CD, which component is responsible for reconciling the cluster state with the source of truth defined in a Git repository?
Medium73A CI pipeline builds a container image and tags it as 'myapp:latest'. The pipeline then pushes the image to a registry. A Kubernetes Deployment manifest references 'myapp:latest' with imagePullPolicy: Always. After a new image is pushed with the same tag, the team notices that existing Pods are not updated. What is the most likely reason?
Medium74A DevOps team wants to adopt a deployment pattern where a new version of an application is gradually rolled out to a small subset of users before full deployment. Which progressive delivery technique should they use?
Medium75A platform team is designing a progressive delivery rollout for a new version of a service running on Kubernetes. They want to send a small percentage of live traffic to the new version, observe metrics, and automatically roll back if error rates rise. Which two components are required to implement this with a service mesh? (Choose two.)
Hard76A DevOps team uses Helm to manage Kubernetes applications. They want to ensure that sensitive data (e.g., database passwords) is not stored in plaintext in the Helm chart or in the cluster's ConfigMaps/Secrets. Which TWO practices should they adopt? (Choose two.)
Medium77A team wants to implement GitOps for their Kubernetes workloads using Argo CD. They have multiple environments (dev, staging, prod) in separate clusters. What is the best practice for structuring the Git repository?
Hard78A development team wants to implement GitOps for their Kubernetes deployments using ArgoCD. Which ArgoCD component is responsible for monitoring the Git repository for changes and syncing the desired state to the cluster?
Medium79A release manager asks how a GitOps controller such as Argo CD decides whether an application is in sync. Which statement accurately describes that behavior?
Medium80A team uses Argo CD to manage a production cluster. A developer commits a change to the Git repository that declares a Deployment with three replicas, but someone later manually scales the Deployment to five replicas using kubectl. What does Argo CD report and do by default?
Medium81Which THREE of the following are DORA metrics?
Medium82A DevOps engineer notices that after a Helm upgrade, the new pods are crash looping with 'ImagePullBackOff'. What is the most likely cause?
Medium83A CI pipeline scans container images for vulnerabilities. The scan report shows a critical vulnerability in a base image layer. What is the most efficient way to remediate this issue?
Hard84In a GitOps workflow, a team uses ArgoCD. A developer manually changes a Deployment's replica count in the cluster via kubectl. ArgoCD has self-healing enabled. What will happen?
Hard85What is the purpose of container image scanning in a CI/CD pipeline?
Easy86According to DORA metrics, which metric measures the percentage of deployments that fail in production?
Hard87A team is deploying a new microservice that processes sensitive user data. They want to ensure that secrets such as database passwords are not exposed in the container image or environment variables. Which approach should they use?
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Frequently asked questions
- What does the Cloud Native Application Delivery domain cover on the KCNA exam?
- Be able to order CrashLoopBackOff troubleshooting, explain Deployment rollout and rollback behavior, and match GitOps and feature-flag tools to their use cases. The key is understanding that GitOps agents continuously reconcile live cluster state to the Git-declared desired state.
- How many questions are in this domain?
- This page lists all 87 Cloud Native Application Delivery questions in the KCNA question bank. The actual exam draws from this domain proportionally to its weighting in the official exam blueprint.
- What is the best way to practise this domain?
- Start with a short focused session (10 questions) to identify gaps, then work through explanations. Repeat with a longer session once the weak areas feel solid.
- Can I practise only Cloud Native Application Delivery questions?
- Yes — the session launcher on this page filters questions to this domain only. Choose any session length for inline explanations and scoring.