220-1102 Operational Procedures Practice Question
A technician has been granted approval from the Change Advisory Board (CAB) to apply a critical security patch to a web server. The patch requires a reboot, causing a brief outage. The technician has backed up the system and verified the backup is valid. What is the NEXT step the technician should take according to change management best practices?
⚠ Common exam trap
Test-takers frequently confuse the order of steps in the change management process, mistakenly believing that testing the backup again (Option C) or scheduling another CAB meeting (Option D) is required before proceeding, when in fact the approval and backup validation have already been completed, making user notification the immediate next step.
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
✓
Notify the affected users of the upcoming outage
After CAB approval and backup verification, the next step in change management best practices is to notify affected users of the upcoming outage. This ensures stakeholders are aware of the planned downtime, aligning with the 'communicate and coordinate' phase of the change management process. The technician must provide advance notice to users who rely on the web server, allowing them to prepare for the brief interruption.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Perform a post-implementation review
Why it's wrong here
Performing a post-implementation review at this stage is premature because that review is conducted only after the change has been fully deployed, tested, and made operational. Its purpose is to evaluate whether the patch achieved its intended objectives, identify any adverse effects, and document lessons learned for future changes. Since the patch has not yet been applied, there is no outcome to assess, and jumping to this step would skip the required implementation and validation phases.
- ✓
Notify the affected users of the upcoming outage
Why this is correct
Notifying affected users of the upcoming outage is the correct next step because it fulfills the change management requirement to inform stakeholders before any service-affecting change. This final notification, issued after CAB approval, gives users the exact maintenance window and allows them to save their work, terminate active sessions, and prepare for the interruption. Without this communication, users could lose unsaved data or be caught off guard by the outage, violating the change's communication plan and potentially creating unnecessary incidents.
- ✗
Test the backup by performing a full restore to a test environment
Why it's wrong here
Testing the backup by performing a full restore to a test environment is unnecessary because the scenario explicitly states the backup has already been verified as valid. Conducting another full restore now would consume significant time and resources, prolong the maintenance window, and introduce additional risk by changing the test environment's state. A restore test is a pre-implementation validation step, but once the backup is confirmed good, the appropriate action is to proceed with the patch while keeping the verified backup available for rollback.
- ✗
Schedule another CAB meeting to confirm approval
Why it's wrong here
Scheduling another CAB meeting to reconfirm approval is redundant and would introduce needless delay because the CAB has already granted approval for the change, and no material information has changed. Under standard change management practices, additional approval is only required if the scope, implementation plan, or risk profile of the change is modified. Reiterating the same request without any new data wastes the board's time and slows down the deployment, especially when the change is already on schedule.
Go deeper
Related to this question
Learn chapter
Ticketing System Workflow
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.
Key term
Backup
A backup is a copy of computer data taken and stored separately so that the original data can be restored if it is lost, damaged, or corrupted.
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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.