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Container Orchestration

Practise Kubernetes and Cloud Native Associate KCNA Container Orchestration practice questions — original exam-style scenarios with answer choices, explanations, and analysis of common mistakes.

173 questions44 easy86 medium43 hard

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What to know about Container Orchestration

Container Orchestration questions test whether you can apply the concept in context, not just recognise a definition.

How the topic appears in realistic exam-style scenarios.

Which detail in the question changes the correct answer.

How to eliminate plausible but wrong options.

How to connect the question back to the wider exam objective.

Watch out for

Common Container Orchestration exam traps

  • Answering from memory before reading the full scenario.
  • Missing a constraint such as cost, availability, security, scope or command context.
  • Choosing a broad answer when the question asks for the most specific fix.
  • Ignoring why the wrong options are tempting.

Question index

All Container Orchestration questions (173)

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1

Which of the following is a key benefit of container orchestration compared to running containers manually?

Easy
2

Which THREE are valid container runtimes that implement the Kubernetes CRI? (Choose three.)

Hard
3

An administrator wants to ensure that a specific pod only runs on nodes that have solid-state drives (SSDs). Nodes with SSDs are labeled with 'disktype=ssd'. Which pod specification field should be used?

Hard
4

Which TWO of the following are benefits of using a container orchestration platform like Kubernetes? (Select 2)

Medium
5

Which TWO of the following are benefits of using containers over virtual machines? (Choose 2)

Easy
6

A Kubernetes cluster has a Service named 'my-svc' in the 'default' namespace. Which command would correctly expose this service as an external endpoint using a cloud load balancer?

Medium
7

A Kubernetes cluster is experiencing network latency. The team suspects that the number of services and endpoints is causing iptables performance degradation. Which CNI plugin or network policy approach is most likely to improve performance?

Hard
8

You need to run a batch job that processes a queue and then terminates. Which Kubernetes resource should you use?

Medium
9

You are designing a microservices application. Which of the following is a key principle of microservices architecture?

Hard
10

Which Kubernetes component is responsible for maintaining the desired state of the cluster?

Easy
11

A pod in the 'production' namespace is in a CrashLoopBackOff state. The pod has been running successfully for several days. You run 'kubectl describe pod app-pod -n production' and see the message: 'OOMKilled'. What is the MOST appropriate action to resolve this issue?

Medium
12

A developer wants to run a containerized application locally for development. Which tool is most appropriate?

Medium
13

An application requires stable network identities and persistent storage. Which workload type should be used?

Medium
14

Which of the following is a benefit of using an orchestrator like Kubernetes?

Easy
15

Which component is responsible for running containers on a Kubernetes node?

Easy
16

Which of the following is a benefit of using container orchestration platforms like Kubernetes?

Medium
17

Which TWO of the following are benefits of using a container orchestration platform like Kubernetes? (Select 2)

Medium
18

What is the purpose of a readiness probe in a Kubernetes pod?

Medium
19

An administrator runs 'kubectl get pods' and sees that a pod named 'app-pod' is in 'CrashLoopBackOff'. They run 'kubectl logs app-pod' and see a segmentation fault error. What is the most likely cause?

Medium
20

You have a Deployment with three replicas. You want to update the container image but ensure that only one pod is updated at a time, and the update proceeds only if the new pod becomes healthy. Which update strategy should you configure?

Hard
21

You need to deploy a batch job that processes a queue and runs to completion. The job should run exactly once and create exactly one pod per work item, but some items may fail. Which Kubernetes resource is best suited?

Hard
22

A company wants to adopt immutable infrastructure for its containerized applications. Which practice BEST exemplifies immutability?

Medium
23

Your organization runs a microservices application in a Kubernetes cluster with 5 worker nodes. Each microservice is deployed as a Deployment with 3 replicas. Recently, users report intermittent timeouts when accessing the frontend service. The frontend communicates with a backend service via ClusterIP. You check the backend pods and find that one of the three replicas is in CrashLoopBackOff. The other two backend pods are healthy. The frontend deployment has no readiness or liveness probes. You notice that the frontend's connection pool to the backend has a timeout of 5 seconds. The crashing backend pod logs show an occasional NullPointerException that causes the container to restart, but the pod becomes ready after restart within 2 seconds. However, the frontend's connection pool does not evict unhealthy connections quickly. What is the best course of action to reduce timeouts?

Hard
24

Which of the following is a benefit of container orchestration?

Medium
25

A pod uses a ServiceAccount that has a RoleBinding to a Role with 'get', 'list', 'watch' on 'pods'. The pod tries to list pods in the same namespace. Will the request succeed?

Hard
26

You are troubleshooting a service that is not accessible from within the cluster. The service has a label selector that matches the pods. You run 'kubectl get endpoints myservice' and see that the ENDPOINTS column is empty. What is the most likely cause?

Medium
27

Which TWO of the following are valid methods to expose a set of pods to external traffic in Kubernetes?

Hard
28

Which TWO statements about container images are correct? (Choose two.)

Easy
29

A pod spec includes a liveness probe that runs 'cat /tmp/healthy'. The probe is configured with initialDelaySeconds: 10, periodSeconds: 5. At what point does the kubelet first execute the probe?

Medium
30

A DevOps team notices that a new deployment of a web application is not receiving traffic even though the pods are running. The deployment has a selector matching the pod labels, and a Service of type ClusterIP exists. What is the most likely cause?

Medium
31

A Kubernetes cluster has a single control plane node and two worker nodes. The control plane node fails. What is the immediate impact on the workloads running on the worker nodes?

Medium
32

What is the purpose of a Readiness Probe in a Kubernetes pod?

Medium
33

You have a microservices application where Service A needs to communicate with Service B running in a different namespace ('backend'). Both namespaces have a NetworkPolicy that denies all ingress by default. You create a NetworkPolicy in the 'backend' namespace allowing ingress from pods with label 'app: frontend'. What else is needed for Service A to reach Service B?

Hard
34

Refer to the exhibit. How many containers are defined in this Pod?

Easy
35

A Deployment manages 3 replicas of a pod. During a rolling update, one of the new pods enters CrashLoopBackOff. What happens next?

Hard
36

A pod is stuck in 'Pending' state. You run 'kubectl describe pod mypod' and see the event '0/4 nodes are available: 4 Insufficient cpu'. What is the most likely cause?

Medium
37

When using a Service of type ClusterIP, how do pods reach the service?

Hard
38

Which THREE of the following are true about container lifecycle? (Choose 3)

Medium
39

You are asked to deploy a Kubernetes service that exposes a set of pods internally within the cluster only. The service should not be accessible from outside the cluster. Which Service type should you choose?

Hard
40

What is the primary purpose of the Open Container Initiative (OCI)?

Easy
41

You need to run a stateful application that requires stable network identities and persistent storage per pod. Which Kubernetes resource is BEST suited?

Hard
42

Which two of the following are characteristics of container images built using OCI standards? (Choose two.)

Medium
43

A Kubernetes cluster has two nodes: control-plane and worker. The worker node runs several pods. The control-plane node becomes unreachable. What is the immediate impact on the pods running on the worker node?

Hard
44

Which of the following is a key benefit of container orchestration?

Easy
45

What is the primary benefit of using containers over virtual machines?

Easy
46

What is the primary difference between a container and a virtual machine (VM)?

Easy
47

Which THREE are benefits of using a container orchestration platform? (Select 3)

Medium
48

Which TWO are benefits of using a container orchestration platform like Kubernetes? (Select TWO.)

Easy
49

Which of the following is a benefit of container orchestration?

Easy
50

Which three of the following are benefits of container orchestration? (Choose three.)

Hard
51

Which THREE of the following are benefits of using container orchestration? (Choose three.)

Hard
52

Which component implements the Container Runtime Interface (CRI) to manage container lifecycle in Kubernetes?

Medium
53

What is the purpose of a readiness probe in a Kubernetes pod?

Easy
54

Based on the exhibit, why is the pod web-pod not running?

Easy
55

What is the purpose of a readiness probe in a Kubernetes pod?

Easy
56

A pod is stuck in 'Pending' state. Which of the following is a likely cause?

Medium
57

Which Kubernetes resource should be used to run a one-time task that performs a computation and then exits?

Medium
58

Which TWO of the following are characteristics of immutable infrastructure? (Select two.)

Medium
59

A developer wants to deploy a stateless web application that should scale to 5 replicas. Each replica must be identical and should be automatically replaced if it fails. Which Kubernetes resource should be used?

Medium
60

Which Kubernetes resource is used to run a batch job that runs to completion?

Easy
61

A DevOps engineer wants to deploy a stateful application that requires stable network identities and persistent storage. Which Kubernetes resource is most appropriate?

Medium
62

Which THREE of the following are true about the Open Container Initiative (OCI)? (Select 3)

Hard
63

Which TWO of the following are benefits of using a container orchestration platform like Kubernetes? (Choose two.)

Medium
64

Which TWO of the following are required fields when defining a container in a Kubernetes Pod spec? (Choose 2)

Medium
65

Which of the following is a key principle of microservices architecture?

Easy
66

Which THREE are valid ways to perform a rolling update of a Deployment in Kubernetes? (Select THREE.)

Hard
67

A pod is stuck in the 'Pending' state. You run 'kubectl describe pod mypod' and see the event: '0/3 nodes are available: 1 node had taint that the pod didn't tolerate, 2 Insufficient cpu.' What is the most likely cause?

Medium
68

Which TWO statements about containers are true compared to virtual machines? (Select TWO.)

Medium
69

Drag and drop the steps to update a Kubernetes Secret and ensure Pods use the new value into the correct order.

Medium
70

Which command would you run to get a list of all pods in all namespaces?

Medium
71

Which THREE of the following are key characteristics of microservices architecture?

Hard
72

You need to deploy an application that requires exactly one pod per cluster node for logging purposes. Which Kubernetes workload resource should you use?

Hard
73

You need to ensure that a set of pods in a Deployment can be reached by other pods using a stable IP address and DNS name. Which Kubernetes object should you use?

Medium
74

What is the role of etcd in a Kubernetes cluster?

Medium
75

Drag and drop the steps for a rolling update of a Kubernetes Deployment into the correct order.

Medium
76

What is the Open Container Initiative (OCI) responsible for?

Medium
77

A user runs 'kubectl exec -it pod1 -- /bin/sh' and gets the error: 'error: unable to upgrade connection: container not found ("app")'. The pod has one container named 'app'. What is the most likely cause?

Hard
78

Which TWO statements correctly describe how Kubernetes handles self-healing? (Select two.)

Medium
79

What is the purpose of the Container Runtime Interface (CRI) in Kubernetes?

Medium
80

Which component of Kubernetes is responsible for maintaining the desired state of the cluster?

Easy
81

A DevOps engineer wants to update a Deployment's container image from 'v1' to 'v2' with zero downtime. Which kubectl command should they use?

Medium
82

Which of the following is a container runtime that implements the Container Runtime Interface (CRI)?

Easy
83

A microservices application has multiple services that need to discover each other by name. Which Kubernetes object provides built-in service discovery via DNS?

Hard
84

Which command would you use to view the logs of a specific container in a multi-container pod, using the short flag?

Medium
85

Which component is responsible for running containers in a Kubernetes node and implements the Container Runtime Interface (CRI)?

Medium
86

You run 'kubectl get pods' and see that a pod named 'web-frontend' is in 'Pending' state for more than 5 minutes. What is the most likely cause?

Hard
87

A pod in the 'production' namespace is in a CrashLoopBackOff state. The pod has been running successfully for several days. You run 'kubectl describe pod app-pod -n production' and see the message: 'OOMKilled'. What is the MOST appropriate action to resolve this issue?

Medium
88

You want to ensure that a Pod runs on every Node in the cluster. Which resource should you use?

Medium
89

A container image is built from a Dockerfile with multiple layers. Which statement about container image layers is TRUE?

Medium
90

You need to run a batch job that processes a queue of 1000 items. The job should run to completion and then terminate. Which Kubernetes resource is BEST suited for this workload?

Medium
91

A pod is stuck in the Pending state. Running 'kubectl describe pod <pod-name>' shows the event: '0/3 nodes are available: 1 node had taint {node.kubernetes.io/disk-pressure: }, 2 nodes had taint {node.kubernetes.io/memory-pressure: }'. What is the most likely cause?

Hard
92

Which statement accurately describes a key difference between containers and virtual machines?

Easy
93

Which TWO of the following are true about container networking basics? (Choose 2)

Easy
94

Match each Kubernetes component to its role in the control plane.

Medium
95

What is the purpose of the Container Runtime Interface (CRI) in Kubernetes?

Easy
96

Which TWO of the following are characteristics of microservices architecture? (Choose 2)

Easy
97

A pod has resource requests of 512Mi memory and 500m CPU, and limits of 1Gi memory and 1 CPU. The node has 4Gi memory and 2 CPU cores. If the pod tries to use 700m CPU, what will happen?

Hard
98

A developer wants to run a one-time task that creates a database schema and then exits. Which Kubernetes workload type is most appropriate?

Easy
99

In a container image built from a Dockerfile, what is the purpose of the CMD instruction?

Hard
100

Which Open Container Initiative (OCI) specification defines the format of container images?

Easy
101

What is the Container Runtime Interface (CRI)?

Easy
102

An administrator needs to expose a set of pods running a web application on a static port on each node's IP address. Which Service type should they use?

Medium
103

A company is deploying a microservices application on Kubernetes. They want to ensure that configuration data, such as database URLs and feature flags, can be updated without rebuilding container images. Which Kubernetes resource should they use?

Medium
104

A pod in the 'production' namespace is in a CrashLoopBackOff state. The pod has been running successfully for several days. You run 'kubectl describe pod app-pod -n production' and see the message: 'OOMKilled'. What is the MOST appropriate action to resolve this issue?

Medium
105

A Kubernetes Deployment manages a set of pods. What is the primary purpose of a Deployment?

Medium
106

Which THREE of the following are core principles of immutable infrastructure? (Choose 3)

Medium
107

A developer wants to expose a set of pods running a web application on a stable IP address. Which Kubernetes resource should they create?

Medium
108

Which of the following is a key benefit of using containers over virtual machines?

Easy
109

A developer creates a Deployment with replicas: 3 and strategy type: RollingUpdate with maxSurge: 1 and maxUnavailable: 1. During a rolling update, the Deployment controller creates a new ReplicaSet. After the new ReplicaSet has 2 pods ready, the node running one of the original ReplicaSet's pods fails. What is the MOST likely number of total pods running after the node failure, assuming no other actions?

Hard
110

Match each Kubernetes command (kubectl) to its primary function.

Medium
111

Which TWO of the following are true about service discovery in Kubernetes? (Choose 2)

Hard
112

Which of the following correctly describes the concept of 'immutable infrastructure' in the context of container orchestration?

Hard
113

A Pod is stuck in 'Pending' state. Which command is most helpful to diagnose the issue?

Medium
114

A pod in the 'production' namespace is in a CrashLoopBackOff state. The pod has been running successfully for several days. You run 'kubectl describe pod app-pod -n production' and see the message: 'OOMKilled'. What is the MOST appropriate action to resolve this issue?

Medium
115

What is the primary difference between a container and a virtual machine (VM)?

Easy
116

Which of the following is a valid use case for a DaemonSet?

Medium
117

What is the OCI (Open Container Initiative) responsible for?

Easy
118

An application requires that a specific set of pods be placed on nodes labeled with 'gpu=true'. Which Kubernetes field should be used in the pod spec to enforce this?

Medium
119

A pod is running but its container exits with code 137. The pod logs show 'Killed'. What is the most likely cause?

Hard
120

A developer wants to ensure that a pod runs only on nodes with SSDs. Which mechanism should be used?

Easy
121

You have a microservices application deployed as a set of Pods in a Kubernetes cluster. You need to ensure that Pods can discover each other using stable DNS names. Which Kubernetes resource should you create?

Medium
122

Which TWO of the following are characteristics of a microservices architecture? (Select 2)

Medium
123

A developer wants to deploy a stateful application that requires stable network identities and persistent storage. Which Kubernetes resource is best suited for this workload?

Medium
124

What is the primary benefit of containers over virtual machines?

Easy
125

Which TWO of the following are valid container runtimes that implement the CRI? (Choose two.)

Medium
126

Which component is responsible for managing the lifecycle of containers on a Kubernetes node?

Easy
127

Which TWO statements about the Container Runtime Interface (CRI) are correct? (Select 2)

Hard
128

Which THREE of the following are characteristics of a microservices architecture? (Select 3)

Medium
129

A team wants to deploy a batch job that runs once to process a large dataset. The job should run to completion and then terminate. Which Kubernetes resource should be used?

Medium
130

What is the concept of 'immutable infrastructure' as applied to Kubernetes?

Medium
131

Which THREE of the following are true about the Open Container Initiative (OCI)? (Choose 3)

Hard
132

A company wants to run a batch job that processes data and then terminates. Which Kubernetes resource should they use?

Medium
133

What is the primary purpose of the Container Runtime Interface (CRI) in Kubernetes?

Easy
134

Which TWO statements about container images are correct? (Choose two.)

Medium
135

Which component in Kubernetes is responsible for maintaining the desired state of the cluster?

Easy
136

Which of the following best describes immutable infrastructure?

Hard
137

A Service of type ClusterIP is created for a Deployment, but Pods in other namespaces cannot reach it. What is the most likely cause?

Hard
138

An application running in a Kubernetes pod needs to access a database that is deployed on a VM outside the cluster. The database IP is stable. Which is the best way to expose the database to the pod?

Medium
139

Which TWO statements accurately describe the concept of immutable infrastructure in the context of container orchestration? (Select two.)

Medium
140

What is a primary benefit of using containers over virtual machines?

Easy
141

A developer wants to deploy a stateful application that requires stable network identities and persistent storage per pod instance. Which Kubernetes resource is most appropriate?

Medium
142

A user wants to ensure that a pod is automatically restarted if its main process crashes. Which Kubernetes controller should they use?

Medium
143

What is the Container Runtime Interface (CRI)?

Easy
144

Which command is used to create a Deployment that runs an nginx container with 3 replicas?

Easy
145

What is a key benefit of using containers over virtual machines for application deployment?

Easy
146

Which component is responsible for running containers on a Kubernetes node?

Easy
147

You are writing a Deployment YAML (apps/v1) for a stateless web application. The application should have 3 replicas and use rolling updates with maxSurge=1 and maxUnavailable=0. Which field should you set under spec.strategy?

Medium
148

An administrator needs to ensure that Pods from two different Deployments cannot communicate with each other. Which Kubernetes resource should be used?

Hard
149

Which TWO of the following are valid ways to expose a set of pods as a network service in Kubernetes?

Medium
150

Which command correctly creates a Deployment named 'web-app' with the image 'nginx:1.21' and 3 replicas?

Medium
151

Which of the following describes the Open Container Initiative (OCI) image specification?

Easy
152

A team deploys a microservice that requires sticky sessions. The service runs on Kubernetes with multiple replicas. Which Kubernetes resource should be used to ensure requests from a client are consistently routed to the same pod?

Medium
153

You have a Kubernetes cluster with multiple nodes. You need to ensure that a pod runs on a node that has an SSD. How should you achieve this?

Medium
154

Which TWO of the following correctly describe the difference between Docker Compose and Kubernetes? (Choose 2)

Medium
155

Which THREE of the following are true about the Container Runtime Interface (CRI)? (Choose 3)

Hard
156

Which Kubernetes resource is best suited for running a batch processing job that must complete successfully exactly once?

Medium
157

Which of the following is an example of immutable infrastructure?

Easy
158

A pod is in the 'Pending' state. Which of the following is a likely cause?

Medium
159

Which of the following is a key difference between containers and virtual machines?

Easy
160

A Kubernetes cluster has a Deployment running three replicas of an application. You need to update the container image to a new version with zero downtime. Which approach is most appropriate?

Medium
161

What is the purpose of the Container Runtime Interface (CRI)?

Easy
162

Which Kubernetes resource can be used to define network policies that control traffic between pods?

Hard
163

Your application consists of a frontend and a backend. The frontend needs to communicate with the backend using a stable DNS name. The backend is deployed as a Deployment with 3 replicas. Which Kubernetes resource should you create to provide a stable DNS name for the backend?

Hard
164

A team notices that a ReplicaSet is not creating the desired number of pods. The ReplicaSet YAML is correctly configured with replicas: 3. The cluster has sufficient resources. What is the most likely cause?

Hard
165

What is the difference between a liveness probe and a readiness probe?

Medium
166

Which TWO statements about containers compared to virtual machines are correct? (Select 2)

Medium
167

You have a microservices application where Service A needs to discover the IP of Service B. Both services run in the same Kubernetes cluster. Which approach is the most Kubernetes-native way for Service A to reach Service B?

Hard
168

You are designing a microservices application that requires each service to be independently deployable and scalable. The services communicate over HTTP and need service discovery. Which orchestration feature BEST addresses the need for service discovery?

Medium
169

A user creates a Service of type ClusterIP with a selector matching pods labeled 'app: myapp'. However, a pod named 'myapp-pod' with label 'app: myapp' is not receiving traffic. What is a possible reason?

Hard
170

You create a Service of type ClusterIP with the name 'my-service' in the 'default' namespace. What DNS name resolves to the service's cluster IP from a pod in the same namespace?

Medium
171

A Kubernetes administrator needs to restrict inbound traffic to a set of pods. Only pods with the label 'app: frontend' in the same namespace should be allowed to reach the pods on TCP port 8080. Which resource should be used?

Medium
172

Which THREE of the following are correct statements about Kubernetes Deployments?

Hard
173

A pod is in CrashLoopBackOff. You check the logs and see 'Error: container process not found'. What is the most likely cause?

Medium

Frequently asked questions

What does the Container Orchestration domain cover on the KCNA exam?
Container Orchestration questions test whether you can apply the concept in context, not just recognise a definition.
How many questions are in this domain?
This page lists all 173 Container Orchestration 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 Container Orchestration questions?
Yes — the session launcher on this page filters questions to this domain only. Choose any session length for inline explanations and scoring.
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