hardMultiple Choice
CV0-004 Practice Question: A company uses a hybrid cloud model with an…
A company uses a hybrid cloud model with an on-premises data center and a public cloud. The network team reports that traffic between the cloud and on-premises is experiencing high latency and packet loss. The cloud administrator verifies that the VPN connection is up. What is the most likely cause?
⚠ Common exam trap
A common mix-up: candidates assume a 'VPN is up' means all traffic flows perfectly, but CompTIA often tests the subtlety that MTU mismatch causes performance degradation without breaking the tunnel itself, leading them to incorrectly blame firewall rules or bandwidth throttling.
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
✓
The VPN tunnel has a mismatched MTU size.
When a VPN tunnel is up but traffic experiences high latency and packet loss, a mismatched Maximum Transmission Unit (MTU) size is a common cause. This occurs because packets larger than the tunnel's MTU must be fragmented, and if fragmentation is not properly handled (e.g., due to the DF bit being set), packets are dropped, leading to retransmissions and increased latency. The symptoms align with MTU issues rather than simple connectivity or throttling problems.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
A firewall rule is blocking ICMP packets.
Why it's wrong here
ICMP blocking would break ping diagnostics, not degrade established TCP throughput; latency and packet loss on a live VPN point to congestion or MTU issues. Firewall ICMP rules are genuinely relevant when troubleshooting reachability tests, so they tempt anyone whose first step is a failed ping.
- ✗
VMs are placed in different cloud regions.
Why it's wrong here
Cross-region placement adds latency only if the VPN terminates in a different region from the workloads; the stem already ties the path to a single hybrid link. Region choice is the right answer when designing latency-sensitive replication or failover topology, not when an existing tunnel degrades.
- ✓
The VPN tunnel has a mismatched MTU size.
Why this is correct
A mismatched MTU causes larger packets to be dropped when the DF flag is set, producing packet loss and retransmission latency while the tunnel itself stays up. This matches the verified-up VPN with high latency and loss.
- ✗
The cloud provider is throttling bandwidth.
Why it's wrong here
Provider throttling would cap throughput symmetrically and typically appear as bandwidth limits, not the variable latency plus loss pattern of a saturated or fragmented tunnel. Throttling is the correct diagnosis when sustained transfer rates plateau at a documented quota.
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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.