KCNA Cloud Native Architecture Practice Question
Which TWO of the following are features of a service mesh like Istio or Linkerd? (Select 2)
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 management (routing, load balancing)
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.
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
Container image building is done by tools like Docker or Buildpacks.
- ✓
Traffic management (routing, load balancing)
Why this is correct
Service mesh enables fine-grained traffic management.
- ✓
Observability (metrics, tracing, logs)
Why this is correct
Service mesh provides observability of service-to-service communication.
- ✗
Service discovery
Why it's wrong here
Service discovery is provided by Kubernetes DNS, not service mesh.
- ✗
Auto-scaling of services
Why it's wrong here
Auto-scaling is not a service mesh feature; it's handled by other components.
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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Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
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