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CV0-004 Practice Question: A cloud administrator notices that a virtual…
A cloud administrator notices that a virtual machine running a critical application is using 95% CPU consistently. The application is single-threaded and performance is degraded. Which action should the administrator take to resolve the issue?
⚠ Common exam trap
CompTIA often tests the misconception that adding more vCPUs always improves performance, but for single-threaded workloads, higher clock speed is the correct solution, not vCPU count.
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
✓
Migrate the VM to a host with a higher CPU clock speed.
The application is single-threaded, meaning it can only utilize one CPU core at a time. Increasing the CPU clock speed directly improves the processing speed of that single thread, which resolves the performance degradation. Option C is correct because migrating to a host with a higher CPU clock speed provides a faster core for the single-threaded workload.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Deploy additional VMs and load balance the application.
Why it's wrong here
The application is single-threaded, so extra VMs and load balancing cannot parallelise its work; each instance still runs one thread. Horizontal scaling suits multi-threaded or stateless workloads, whereas this scenario needs a larger instance shape or higher CPU allocation for the single thread.
- ✗
Increase the RAM allocation to the VM.
Why it's wrong here
Adding RAM addresses memory pressure, not CPU saturation; a single-threaded workload bottlenecked at 95% CPU gains nothing from extra memory. It is tempting because RAM increases resolve swapping and out-of-memory faults, and would be correct if the VM showed high memory utilisation or paging rather than sustained processor contention.
- ✓
Migrate the VM to a host with a higher CPU clock speed.
Why this is correct
Because the application is single-threaded, extra cores cannot help; throughput is bound by per-core clock speed. Migrating to a host with a higher CPU clock frequency raises single-thread performance, directly resolving the sustained 95% CPU saturation.
- ✗
Increase the number of vCPUs assigned to the VM.
Why it's wrong here
Adding vCPUs cannot help a single-threaded workload, because the application executes on one core regardless of how many are assigned; the bottleneck is per-core clock speed, not core count. Scaling vCPU count suits multi-threaded or parallel workloads saturating several cores simultaneously.
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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.