PCA Instrumentation And Exporters Practice Question
You need to track the number of requests received by your application. Which metric type should you choose?
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
✓
Counter
A counter is a cumulative metric that represents a single monotonically increasing counter whose value can only increase or be reset to zero on restart.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✓
Counter
Why this is correct
Counters are designed for monotonically increasing values like request counts.
- ✗
Summary
Why it's wrong here
Summaries are for observations and quantiles.
- ✗
Gauge
Why it's wrong here
Gauges can go up and down, which is not ideal for total request counts.
- ✗
Histogram
Why it's wrong here
Histograms are for sampling observations, typically for duration or size distribution.
About these practice questions
One of 304 original PCA practice questions on Courseiva, each with a full explanation and wrong-answer analysis — not exam dumps or protected exam content. Learn why practice questions differ from exam dumps →
JA
Written and reviewed by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
Last reviewed August 2026 · checked against the official CNCF / Linux Foundation exam blueprint
This PCA practice question is part of Courseiva's free CNCF / Linux Foundation 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 PCA exam.