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CAS-004 Practice Question: Designing a new data center with high…
A company is designing a new data center with high availability requirements. The network team proposes using virtualized network functions (VNFs) on commodity hardware to reduce costs. Which security consideration is MOST important when implementing this design?
⚠ Common exam trap
Candidates often confuse operational requirements (redundancy, QoS, encryption) with security controls, overlooking that isolation is the foundational security measure in a shared virtualized environment.
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
✓
Isolate VNFs to prevent lateral movement if one VNF is compromised
Isolating VNFs is the most important security consideration because VNFs share the same hypervisor and commodity hardware, so a compromise in one VNF could allow an attacker to move laterally to other VNFs or the underlying host. Without proper isolation (e.g., using VLANs, VXLANs, or micro-segmentation), the entire multi-tenant environment is at risk, undermining the high-availability design.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✓
Isolate VNFs to prevent lateral movement if one VNF is compromised
Why this is correct
Isolation is critical because VNFs share hypervisor; a compromise could spread.
- ✗
Ensure VNFs are deployed across multiple physical hosts for redundancy
Why it's wrong here
Redundancy is a design goal but not the most important security consideration.
- ✗
Encrypt all traffic between VNFs to prevent eavesdropping
Why it's wrong here
Encryption is important but not the most critical security consideration for VNF sharing.
- ✗
Implement quality of service (QoS) to guarantee bandwidth for critical VNFs
Why it's wrong here
QoS addresses performance, not security.
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JA
Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
This CAS-005 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 CAS-005 exam.