PCA Prometheus Fundamentals Practice Question
Your Prometheus server is hitting high memory usage due to high cardinality. Which action is most effective at reducing memory pressure?
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
✓
Drop high-cardinality labels using relabel_configs
Reducing label cardinality (e.g., removing unique user IDs) is the primary way to reduce TSDB index size and memory usage.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Increase scrape_interval
Why it's wrong here
Increasing the interval reduces ingestion volume but does not lower cardinality.
- ✓
Drop high-cardinality labels using relabel_configs
Why this is correct
Dropping labels prevents high-cardinality metrics from being stored in TSDB.
- ✗
Use more exporters
Why it's wrong here
More exporters will increase the number of targets and memory usage.
- ✗
Enable remote write
Why it's wrong here
Remote write offloads storage, but the local Prometheus still holds the series in memory for the scrape loop.
About these practice questions
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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.