KCNA Kubernetes Fundamentals Practice Question
You have a Deployment with the following rollout strategy: rollingUpdate: maxSurge: 1, maxUnavailable: 0. What behavior does this configuration enforce?
⚠ Common exam trap
The trap in this question is that candidates often mistakenly think 'maxSurge: 1, maxUnavailable: 0' allows one old pod to be terminated before a new one starts (like a 'one-by-one' strategy). In reality, 'maxUnavailable: 0' forces a new pod to be created and become ready before any existing pod is removed, ensuring zero downtime. This is Kubernetes-specific and differs from simpler rolling update strategies.
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
✓
The rollout will create one additional pod before terminating the old pod, ensuring zero downtime
The rolling update strategy `maxSurge: 1, maxUnavailable: 0` ensures that during the rollout, one additional pod is created above the desired replica count before any existing pod is terminated. This guarantees that the total number of available pods never drops below the desired count, achieving zero downtime. The `maxUnavailable: 0` setting prevents any pod from being taken down until a new one is ready, while `maxSurge: 1` allows one extra pod to be created temporarily.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
The rollout will terminate all old pods at once and then create new ones
Why it's wrong here
That would be a Recreate strategy.
- ✗
The rollout will create all new pods first, then delete all old pods
Why it's wrong here
That would require maxSurge=desired, but maxSurge=1 only allows one extra.
- ✗
The rollout will terminate one old pod before creating a new one
Why it's wrong here
That would be maxSurge=0, maxUnavailable=1.
- ✓
The rollout will create one additional pod before terminating the old pod, ensuring zero downtime
Why this is correct
This strategy ensures at least desired replicas are always running.
Go deeper
Related to this question
About these practice questions
Courseiva writes every KCNA question from scratch — 833 in total, each with an explanation and a wrong-answer breakdown. None are copied from real exams or dumps. Learn why practice questions differ from exam dumps →
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.