CV0-004 Operations and Support Practice Question
A cloud operations team deploys a containerized workload to a Kubernetes cluster managed by Amazon EKS. The application pods intermittently fail during peak traffic hours, and the team suspects that the pods are being terminated because they exceed their configured resource limits. Which action should the team take FIRST to confirm this suspicion?
⚠ Common exam trap
The trap here is assuming that AWS-level logging such as CloudTrail captures in-cluster pod terminations, when those events are handled by the Kubernetes control plane and kubelet.
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 pod events and container status using kubectl describe pod and check for OOMKilled or Evicted reasons.
The fastest way to confirm whether pods are hitting resource limits is to inspect Kubernetes events and container termination reasons. The kubectl describe pod output reports OOMKilled, Evicted, and related statuses that directly indicate whether limits or node pressure caused the failures. This evidence-based step avoids premature scaling or limit changes and keeps the investigation focused on the actual cause.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Increase the CPU and memory limits for the deployment immediately and observe whether failures stop.
Why it's wrong here
Raising limits without evidence may mask a different root cause such as node pressure, a misconfigured readiness probe, or an application memory leak, and it can waste cluster capacity. Kubernetes resource tuning should follow diagnosis, not precede it. Making changes first also risks hiding the original termination reason once the pods are recreated under new limits.
- ✗
Enable AWS CloudTrail data events on the EKS cluster and search for DeletePod API calls.
Why it's wrong here
CloudTrail records AWS API activity, not kubelet-initiated container terminations caused by resource limits. Pod eviction and OOM termination happen inside the cluster control plane and kubelet, so they do not appear as CloudTrail data events. This approach would not reveal the termination reason and adds cost and complexity without answering the question.
- ✗
Configure a Horizontal Pod Autoscaler with a target CPU utilization of 50 percent and wait for the next peak.
Why it's wrong here
An HPA changes replica count based on metrics but does not confirm why individual pods are terminating. If pods are dying from memory limits or node pressure, adding replicas may not resolve the failures and could increase disruption. Autoscaling is a remediation strategy, not a diagnostic step, so it does not answer the team's immediate question.
- ✓
Review the pod events and container status using kubectl describe pod and check for OOMKilled or Evicted reasons.
Why this is correct
Using kubectl describe pod surfaces Kubernetes events and the last termination reason for each container, including OOMKilled when a container exceeds its memory limit or Evicted when the node reclaims resources. This is the most direct, low-cost diagnostic step before changing any configuration, and it aligns with the operations task of identifying why pods are being terminated under load.
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JA
Written and reviewed by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
Last reviewed September 2026 · checked against the official CompTIA exam blueprint
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.