KCNA Cloud Native Architecture Practice Question
Which THREE of the following are features typically provided by a service mesh? (Choose 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
✓
Observability through metrics and tracing
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.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✓
Observability through metrics and tracing
Why this is correct
Service mesh collects telemetry data for monitoring.
- ✗
Auto-scaling of pods based on CPU
Why it's wrong here
Auto-scaling is not a service mesh feature; it's provided by HPA.
- ✓
Traffic management between services
Why this is correct
Service mesh enables fine-grained traffic routing and control.
- ✓
Security with mutual TLS (mTLS)
Why this is correct
Service mesh encrypts traffic and provides identity-based access control.
- ✗
Service discovery
Why it's wrong here
While service mesh can integrate with service discovery, it is not a primary feature; Kubernetes DNS already provides discovery.
Go deeper
Related to this question
Learn chapter
Kubernetes Overview and Core Components
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.
Key term
ReplicaSet and Replication
A ReplicaSet ensures a specified number of identical pod instances are running at all times in Kubernetes, using replication to maintain availability and stability.
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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.