KCNA Cloud Native Architecture Practice Question
Which THREE of the following are features provided by a service mesh like Istio? (Select THREE.)
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
✓
Traffic routing and load balancing
Service mesh provides traffic management (routing), observability (metrics, tracing), and security (mTLS, policies).
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Container image building
Why it's wrong here
Image building is outside the service mesh scope.
- ✓
Traffic routing and load balancing
Why this is correct
Service mesh can route traffic based on rules.
- ✓
Observability including metrics and distributed tracing
Why this is correct
Envoy proxies collect telemetry data.
- ✓
Security through mTLS and access policies
Why this is correct
Service mesh can enforce mutual TLS and authorization.
- ✗
Database schema migrations
Why it's wrong here
Schema management is not a service mesh function.
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Same concept, more angles
2 more ways this is tested on KCNA
These questions test the same concept from different angles. Work through them to make sure you can recognise it however the exam phrases it.
Variation 1. Which TWO of the following are features of a service mesh like Istio or Linkerd? (Select 2)
hard- A.Container image building
- ✓ B.Traffic management (routing, load balancing)
- ✓ C.Observability (metrics, tracing, logs)
- D.Service discovery
- E.Auto-scaling of services
Why B: Service mesh provides observability (metrics, tracing, logs) and traffic management (routing, load balancing). Auto-scaling is not a service mesh feature; it's handled by Kubernetes HPA or Knative. Service discovery is also not a direct feature of service mesh; it's typically provided by Kubernetes DNS.
Variation 2. Which THREE of the following are features typically provided by a service mesh? (Choose three.)
hard- ✓ A.Observability through metrics and tracing
- B.Auto-scaling of pods based on CPU
- ✓ C.Traffic management between services
- ✓ D.Security with mutual TLS (mTLS)
- E.Service discovery
Why A: Service mesh provides traffic management (routing, canary releases), observability (metrics, tracing), and security (mTLS, authorization). Auto-scaling is handled by Horizontal Pod Autoscaler or custom metrics, not by the service mesh. Service discovery is often built into Kubernetes itself, though service mesh can enhance it, but it's not a core feature.
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.