The correct answer is to use a load balancer in front of the application and deploy an auto-scaling group across multiple availability zones. A load balancer distributes incoming traffic across healthy instances, providing fault tolerance by automatically rerouting requests if an instance fails. Meanwhile, an auto-scaling group spanning multiple availability zones ensures that if an entire zone goes down, the application remains available in another zone, and the group automatically replaces failed instances to maintain desired capacity. On the CompTIA Cloud+ CV0-004 exam, this question tests your understanding of high availability design principles, often appearing in scenario-based items where you must distinguish between scalability and fault tolerance. A common trap is selecting only one zone or forgetting the load balancer’s role in traffic distribution. Remember the mnemonic “L.A.Z.”—Load balancer, Auto-scaling, Zones—to recall the core pillars of cloud high availability.
CV0-004 Operations and Support Practice Question
This CV0-004 practice question tests your understanding of operations and support. The scenario asks you to isolate a root cause — eliminate options that address a different problem before choosing. After answering, compare your reasoning against the explanation and wrong-answer breakdown below. Once you have made your selection, read the full explanation to reinforce the concept and understand why each distractor is designed to mislead on exam day.
A cloud administrator is deploying a new application in a cloud environment. The application requires high availability and fault tolerance. Which two design principles should the administrator implement? (Select TWO).
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
✓
Place a load balancer in front of the application.
Option A is correct because placing a load balancer in front of the application distributes incoming traffic across multiple healthy instances, ensuring that if one instance fails, traffic is redirected to others, which provides high availability and fault tolerance. Option B is correct because deploying an auto-scaling group across multiple Availability Zones (AZs) ensures that if an entire AZ fails, the application continues running in another AZ, and the auto-scaling group automatically replaces failed instances to maintain capacity.
Key principle: Answer the scenario, not the keyword: identify the specific constraint before choosing the most familiar-sounding option.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
✓
Place a load balancer in front of the application.
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
✓
Use an auto-scaling group across multiple availability zones.
Why this is correct
Correct. Distributing instances across zones ensures application survives zone failure.
Related concept
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
✗
Deploy all instances in a single availability zone.
Why it's wrong here
Single zone is a single point of failure, not highly available.
✗
Use a single instance to reduce costs.
Why it's wrong here
Single instance is not fault tolerant or highly available.
✗
Store all data on a single volume without replication.
Why it's wrong here
Single volume is a single point of failure and offers no fault tolerance.
Common exam traps
Common exam trap: answer the scenario, not the keyword
The trap here is that candidates often think cost-saving strategies (single instance, single volume) are acceptable for high availability, but the exam requires understanding that fault tolerance demands redundancy at every layer—compute, storage, and network—across multiple failure domains.
Detailed technical explanation
How to think about this question
Under the hood, a load balancer (e.g., AWS ALB or NLB) performs health checks via HTTP/HTTPS or TCP probes to detect unhealthy instances and automatically reroutes traffic, while auto-scaling groups use launch templates and scaling policies to adjust instance count based on metrics like CPU utilization or request count. In a real-world scenario, combining a load balancer with an auto-scaling group across three AZs can achieve a 99.99% uptime SLA, as each AZ is isolated from failures in other AZs, and the load balancer distributes traffic using round-robin or least-connections algorithms.
KKey Concepts to Remember
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
Find the constraint that changes the correct option.
Eliminate answers that are true in general but not in this case.
TExam Day Tips
→Watch for words such as best, first, most likely and least administrative effort.
→Review why wrong options are wrong, not only why the correct option is correct.
Key takeaway
Answer the scenario, not the keyword: identify the specific constraint before choosing the most familiar-sounding option.
Real-world example
How this comes up in practice
A practitioner preparing for the CV0-004 exam encounters this exact type of scenario on the job. The correct answer here is not the most general option — it is the best answer for the specific constraint described. Answer the scenario, not the keyword: identify the specific constraint before choosing the most familiar-sounding option. Real exam questions reward reading the full scenario before eliminating options, because the constraint defines which answer fits.
What to study next
Got this wrong? Here's your next step.
Identify which exam domain this question belongs to, review the core concept, then practise similar questions from the same domain.
Operations and Support — This question tests Operations and Support — Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer..
What is the correct answer to this question?
The correct answer is: Place a load balancer in front of the application. — Option A is correct because placing a load balancer in front of the application distributes incoming traffic across multiple healthy instances, ensuring that if one instance fails, traffic is redirected to others, which provides high availability and fault tolerance. Option B is correct because deploying an auto-scaling group across multiple Availability Zones (AZs) ensures that if an entire AZ fails, the application continues running in another AZ, and the auto-scaling group automatically replaces failed instances to maintain capacity.
What should I do if I get this CV0-004 question wrong?
Identify which exam domain this question belongs to, review the core concept, then practise similar questions from the same domain.
What is the key concept behind this question?
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
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Question Discussion
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