220-1102 Operational Procedures Practice Question
A technician needs to apply a critical security patch to a database server that hosts a production application. The patch is known to cause a 10-minute service disruption and cannot be applied during normal business hours. According to change management best practices, which document should the technician submit and have approved BEFORE performing the update?
⚠ Common exam trap
Many exam-takers confuse an RFC with an SOP, as candidates may think a standard procedure covers all patches, but SOPs do not provide the formal approval and risk assessment required for changes that cause service disruption.
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
✓
Request for Change (RFC)
The technician is performing a planned, high-risk change (applying a critical security patch that causes a 10-minute service disruption) outside normal business hours. According to change management best practices, a Request for Change (RFC) must be submitted and approved before implementation to document the change, assess risks, and coordinate the outage window. This ensures the change is authorized, communicated, and has a rollback plan in place.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Standard operating procedure (SOP)
Why it's wrong here
An SOP (Standard Operating Procedure) documents routine, low-risk, repeatable tasks such as nightly backup verification or user account provisioning. Applying a critical security patch to a production database server involves a planned service disruption, elevated risk of data corruption or performance regression, and the need for a maintenance window and rollback strategy. Such an action is not a standard recurring procedure; it must be formally classified as a change and approved through the change management process, so an SOP is inappropriate.
- ✗
Incident report
Why it's wrong here
An incident report is created in response to an unplanned event, such as a security breach, hardware failure, or service outage, and it documents the timeline, impact analysis, and remediation actions after the fact. In this scenario, the patch is a proactive, planned maintenance activity to address a known vulnerability; no incident has occurred yet. Using an incident report would incorrectly categorize planned work as a post-event response and would bypass the required pre-approval, making it a wrong choice.
- ✓
Request for Change (RFC)
Why this is correct
A Request for Change (RFC) is the formal change-management artifact used to propose a modification to an IT service that may impact production, including details such as the purpose, risk assessment, implementation steps, rollback plan, and approval signatures. Patching a database server with a service disruption qualifies as a normal change because it affects availability and requires a scheduled maintenance window and Change Advisory Board (CAB) authorization. The RFC provides the necessary audit trail and ensures the change is evaluated for unintended consequences before execution, making it the correct option.
- ✗
After-action report
Why it's wrong here
An after-action report (or post-implementation review) is a retrospective document written after a change or incident has occurred, capturing lessons learned, successes, and areas for improvement. It is not a pre-authorization tool and cannot be used to gain approval before applying the patch. Submitting an after-action report before the patch would be chronologically invalid and would leave the organization without a documented approval mechanism, so it is incorrect for this situation.
Go deeper
Related to this question
Learn chapter
Password Managers and Best Practices
Key term
Security
Security in IT is the practice of protecting systems, networks, and data from unauthorized access, damage, or theft.
Key term
Change management
Change management is the structured process of planning, approving, implementing, and reviewing changes to IT systems to minimize risk and disruption.
About these practice questions
This 220-1102 question is part of Courseiva's 925-question bank — original exam-style content with full explanations and wrong-answer analysis, never real exam questions or exam 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 220-1102 practice question is part of Courseiva's free CompTIA 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 220-1102 exam.