KCNA Cloud Native Observability Practice Question
Which TWO are pillars of observability? (Select two.)
⚠ Common exam trap
CNCF often tests the distinction between the pillars of observability (Logs, Metrics, Traces) and the tools or outputs derived from them (e.g., SLIs, Alerting, Dashboards), leading candidates to confuse operational practices with foundational data types.
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
✓
Logs
Logs and Metrics are two of the three pillars of observability (alongside Traces). Logs provide immutable, timestamped records of discrete events, while Metrics are numeric aggregations of data over time (e.g., Prometheus counters, histograms). Together they form the foundation for understanding system behavior in cloud-native environments.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
SLIs
Why it's wrong here
SLIs are the measured indicators feeding SLOs, not one of observability's pillars; the pillars are logs, metrics and traces. SLIs are genuinely central when defining reliability targets and error budgets, which is why they appear plausible in an observability context.
- ✗
Alerting
Why it's wrong here
Alerting is a downstream consumer that acts on telemetry once logs, metrics and traces are collected, so it is not itself a pillar of observability. It is tempting because alerting is a visible operational outcome, and it is the right answer when asked about incident notification mechanisms.
- ✓
Logs
Why this is correct
Logs are one of observability's pillars, recording discrete timestamped events that reveal what happened within a system. This satisfies the stem's requirement by providing the detailed, high-cardinality event data that metrics and traces alone cannot capture for debugging specific failures.
- ✓
Metrics
Why this is correct
Metrics are one of observability's pillars, storing numeric time-series measurements aggregated over intervals. This satisfies the stem's requirement by enabling trend analysis, alerting and dashboards, complementing logs and traces which provide event detail and request flow respectively.
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Dashboards
Why it's wrong here
Dashboards are a visualisation layer built on top of collected telemetry, not a source pillar; logs, metrics and traces are the pillars. Dashboards are genuinely the correct choice when the question asks how observability data is presented to stakeholders or operators.
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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.