easyMultiple Choice
CV0-004 Practice Question: A company's cloud environment has experienced a…
A company's cloud environment has experienced a sudden spike in network traffic, causing a critical application to become unresponsive. Which of the following is the FIRST step the cloud administrator should take to address this issue?
⚠ Common exam trap
CV0-004 often tests the troubleshooting sequence — candidates jump to remediation (restart, scale up) because it feels urgent, but the exam expects diagnosis before action.
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
✓
Analyze the network traffic logs to identify the source of the spike.
The first step in troubleshooting a traffic spike is to analyze network traffic logs to identify the source, whether it is a DDoS attack, a misconfigured application, or a legitimate surge. Diagnosis must precede remediation so the fix addresses the actual cause. Restarting, contacting the provider, or adding bandwidth without diagnosis may mask the symptom or waste resources.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Restart the application server to restore service.
Why it's wrong here
Restarting the server treats the symptom while the traffic spike persists, so the application will likely become unresponsive again and the underlying cause remains unidentified. It is tempting because a restart is a fast, familiar recovery action, and it would be the right first step when a single server is hung with no evidence of an external traffic surge.
- ✓
Analyze the network traffic logs to identify the source of the spike.
Why this is correct
Analysing network traffic logs first identifies the spike's source, distinguishing a genuine demand surge from a denial-of-service attack or misconfiguration. That evidence determines the appropriate mitigation, avoiding premature actions such as scaling or blocking traffic that could waste resources or disrupt legitimate users.
- ✗
Contact the cloud provider to report the issue.
Why it's wrong here
Contacting the provider delays diagnosis and may breach the shared responsibility model, since the administrator controls workload configuration and scaling. It is tempting when provider-side capacity is suspected, but the first step is investigating the workload's own metrics to identify the traffic source.
- ✗
Increase the bandwidth for the affected application.
Why it's wrong here
Increasing bandwidth adds capacity without identifying the traffic's origin, potentially masking an attack or runaway process and raising cost. It is tempting as a quick fix for saturation, but the first step is diagnosing the spike's source before changing provisioned capacity.
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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.