KCNA Cloud Native Architecture Practice Question
In a service mesh architecture, which component is responsible for intercepting and managing traffic to and from a pod?
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
✓
Sidecar proxy
The sidecar proxy (e.g., Envoy) runs alongside each service instance and intercepts all network traffic, enabling features like traffic management and observability.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✓
Sidecar proxy
Why this is correct
The sidecar proxy (e.g., Envoy) intercepts all traffic to and from the pod, providing service mesh capabilities.
- ✗
Ingress controller
Why it's wrong here
An ingress controller manages external traffic entering the cluster, not internal traffic.
- ✗
API gateway
Why it's wrong here
An API gateway manages north-south traffic between external clients and services, but it lacks the per-pod sidecar proxy needed to intercept and control east-west traffic within the mesh. This option is tempting because an API gateway also handles routing, authentication, and rate limiting for incoming requests, making it the correct choice when the question concerns external ingress rather than internal pod-to-pod communication.
- ✗
Control plane
Why it's wrong here
The control plane manages the proxies but does not intercept traffic directly.
Go deeper
Related to this question
Learn chapter
Cloud Native Architecture and Concepts
Key term
Service Mesh
A service mesh is a dedicated infrastructure layer that manages communication between microservices, handling tasks like service discovery, load balancing, encryption, and observability without requiring changes to application code.
About these practice questions
Courseiva writes every KCNA question from scratch — 833 in total, each with an explanation and a wrong-answer breakdown. None are copied from real exams or dumps. Learn why practice questions differ from exam dumps →
JA
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.