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CV0-004 Practice Question: A cloud administrator notices that a cloud-based…
A cloud administrator notices that a cloud-based web application is experiencing intermittent latency during peak hours. The application runs on an auto-scaling group of virtual machines behind a load balancer. Which of the following should the administrator investigate FIRST to resolve the issue?
⚠ Common exam trap
Many candidates confuse load balancer tuning (SSL offloading, health checks) with capacity issues, overlooking that auto-scaling policies directly control the number of instances available to handle peak load.
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
✓
Review the auto-scaling group's scaling policies and thresholds
The intermittent latency during peak hours is most likely caused by the auto-scaling group's scaling policies not reacting quickly enough or being set with thresholds that are too high, leading to insufficient capacity under load. Investigating the scaling policies and thresholds first directly addresses the root cause—whether the group is adding instances too slowly or at too high a utilization trigger—rather than symptoms like health checks or DNS. This aligns with the operational best practice of verifying capacity management before tuning network or load-balancer settings.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✓
Review the auto-scaling group's scaling policies and thresholds
Why this is correct
Intermittent peak-hour latency points to insufficient or mistuned scaling, so the scaling policies and thresholds govern whether capacity keeps pace with demand. Verifying them first confirms whether the auto-scaling group adds instances quickly enough before investigating load balancer or instance-level causes.
- ✗
Enable SSL offloading on the load balancer
Why it's wrong here
SSL offloading shifts TLS decryption to the load balancer, reducing backend CPU load but not addressing peak-hour latency caused by insufficient capacity or scaling lag. It is tempting because TLS handshakes are expensive, and offloading is the right fix when backend instances are CPU-bound by cryptographic operations rather than demand.
- ✗
Verify the load balancer's health check interval
Why it's wrong here
Health check interval governs how quickly unhealthy instances are removed from rotation; it does not throttle request distribution or add capacity during peak demand. It is tempting because aggressive intervals speed failover, and tuning them is correct when latency stems from traffic reaching failed or unresponsive backends.
- ✗
Check DNS resolution times for the application domain
Why it's wrong here
DNS resolution occurs before connections reach the load balancer, so its latency would affect all requests uniformly rather than intermittently at peak hours. It is tempting because slow DNS causes user-visible delays, and checking resolution times is correct when failures affect initial connection establishment regardless of load.
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JA
Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
This CV0-004 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 CV0-004 exam.