220-1102 Operational Procedures Practice Question
A technician is applying a critical security patch to a production database server. The patch was fully tested in a lab environment and approved by the Change Advisory Board (CAB). During the scheduled maintenance window, the technician begins the installation. Halfway through, the server becomes unresponsive and fails to restart. Which of the following should the technician do FIRST according to change management best practices?
⚠ Common exam trap
Watch out — candidates often choose to reboot and retry the patch (Option A) because they assume the failure was a transient glitch, but change management best practices mandate executing the rollback plan first to restore service safely before any further troubleshooting.
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
✓
Execute the prepared rollback plan to restore the server to its previous state.
The correct first step is to execute the prepared rollback plan. Change management best practices require that any change, especially a critical security patch on a production server, must have a documented rollback procedure approved by the CAB alongside the change. Since the server became unresponsive and failed to restart during the patch installation, the technician must immediately revert to the known-good state using the pre-tested rollback plan to minimize downtime and data loss.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Reboot the server and attempt the patch installation again.
Why it's wrong here
Reattempting the same patch installation after a reboot disregards the change management process and fails to diagnose the underlying cause of the failure. A reboot may not clear a partially applied database patch, and running the installer again could apply incomplete schema changes or corrupt the database further. The approved change window already includes a backout plan, so improvising a retry without CAB notification violates established procedures and risks prolonged downtime.
- ✓
Execute the prepared rollback plan to restore the server to its previous state.
Why this is correct
Executing the prepared rollback plan is the correct first action because it is the predefined backout strategy approved by the change advisory board, ensuring a controlled return to a known-good state. The plan likely includes reversing schema migrations, removing updated binaries, or restoring configuration backups, all designed to minimize data loss and downtime. Following this plan preserves auditability and demonstrates adherence to change management best practices, whereas ad-hoc actions would deviate from the approved procedure.
- ✗
Contact the software vendor for support before taking any other action.
Why it's wrong here
Contacting the software vendor before initiating the backout plan needlessly delays the recovery of a critical production database, as the vendor cannot access your environment or execute the approved rollback. While vendor support may eventually be needed to analyze the root cause of the patch failure, the immediate priority is to restore service using the documented rollback plan required by change management. Pausing all action to open a support ticket extends the outage window and violates the agreed-upon response protocol for failed changes.
- ✗
Perform a full system restore from the most recent backup.
Why it's wrong here
A full system restore from the most recent backup is a last-resort measure, not the initial response to a failed patch, because it could unnecessarily discard recent transactional changes and may not address a partial patch state. The prepared rollback plan typically offers a more targeted approach, such as uninstalling the patch or restoring specific database files, which is faster and retains more data. Jumping straight to a full restore also consumes significant time and risks introducing additional inconsistencies, whereas the CBA-approved backout plan dictates a staged recovery.
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Related to this question
Learn chapter
Data Classification Levels
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.
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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.