This KCNA practice question tests your understanding of cloud native application delivery. Read the scenario carefully and evaluate each option against the stated constraints before committing to an answer. 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.
Which THREE of the following are DORA metrics?
Mean time to restore (MTTR)
It measures the time to recover from a failure.
Lead time for changes
It measures the time from code commit to production.
Deployment frequency
It measures how often deployments occur.
Code coverage
Why wrong: Code coverage is a testing metric, not a DORA metric.
Number of deployments per developer
Why wrong: This is not a standard DORA metric.
Answer choices
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
Mean time to restore (MTTR)
Mean time to restore (MTTR) is one of the four key DORA metrics defined by the DevOps Research and Assessment (DORA) team. It measures the average time it takes to recover from a failure in a production environment, directly reflecting the resilience and incident response capability of a cloud-native system. In Kubernetes, this often involves automated rollback strategies, pod rescheduling, or canary deployments to minimize downtime.
Key principle: Answer the scenario, not the keyword: identify the specific constraint before choosing the most familiar-sounding option.
Answer analysis
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
Mean time to restore (MTTR)
Why this is correct
It measures the time to recover from a failure.
Related concept
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
Lead time for changes
Why this is correct
It measures the time from code commit to production.
Related concept
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
Deployment frequency
Why this is correct
It measures how often deployments occur.
Related concept
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
Code coverage
Why it's wrong here
Code coverage is a testing metric, not a DORA metric.
Number of deployments per developer
Why it's wrong here
This is not a standard DORA metric.
Common exam traps
CNCF often tests candidates by including plausible but non-DORA metrics like code coverage or deployment counts, exploiting the misconception that any useful DevOps metric qualifies as a DORA metric, when in fact only the four specific metrics (deployment frequency, lead time for changes, mean time to restore, and change failure rate) are officially defined.
Detailed technical explanation
DORA metrics are derived from longitudinal research by the DevOps Research and Assessment team, analyzing thousands of organizations to classify teams as elite, high, medium, or low performers. MTTR specifically tracks the time from when a service degradation or outage is detected (e.g., via Prometheus alerts) to when the service is fully restored, often leveraging Kubernetes liveness probes and automated rollback mechanisms. In practice, elite teams achieve MTTR under one hour, while low performers may take days, highlighting the importance of observability and automated recovery in cloud-native environments.
Key takeaway
Answer the scenario, not the keyword: identify the specific constraint before choosing the most familiar-sounding option.
Real-world example
A small business has 20 workstations on the 192.168.1.0/24 network and one public IP from its ISP. The router uses PAT (NAT overload) so all 20 devices share one public address using different source ports. NAT questions test whether you understand the four address terms and which direction each translation applies.
What to study next
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FAQ
Cloud Native Application Delivery — This question tests Cloud Native Application Delivery — Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer..
The correct answer is: Mean time to restore (MTTR) — Mean time to restore (MTTR) is one of the four key DORA metrics defined by the DevOps Research and Assessment (DORA) team. It measures the average time it takes to recover from a failure in a production environment, directly reflecting the resilience and incident response capability of a cloud-native system. In Kubernetes, this often involves automated rollback strategies, pod rescheduling, or canary deployments to minimize downtime.
Identify which exam domain this question belongs to, review the core concept, then practise similar questions from the same domain.
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
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Last reviewed: Jun 30, 2026
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.
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