PK0-005 Practice Question: Basics of IT Infrastructure and IT Project Management
A project manager is planning a new data center build. The organization requires high availability and low latency for critical applications. Which infrastructure component should be prioritized to meet these requirements?
⚠ Common exam trap
The PK0-005 exam often tests the misconception that adding more hardware (like storage or firewalls) directly improves availability and latency, when in fact network path redundancy is the foundational component for both in a data center context.
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
✓
Redundant network paths
Redundant network paths ensure that if one link or switch fails, traffic can immediately fail over to an alternate path, providing high availability. They also reduce latency by enabling load balancing across multiple links, which is critical for real-time applications. This directly addresses the requirement for both high availability and low latency in a data center build.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Additional storage arrays
Why it's wrong here
Storage arrays address capacity and data durability, not the network path latency or redundant connectivity that high availability and low latency demand. Extra storage would be the priority where the requirement is throughput or resilience of data persistence rather than application response time.
- ✗
Additional firewall appliances
Why it's wrong here
Firewalls filter and inspect traffic, adding processing hops that increase latency rather than reduce it, and they provide no compute or storage redundancy. They are tempting because security is a data centre concern and firewall clustering supports availability, but the stem demands low-latency high-availability infrastructure, which redundant networking and storage deliver.
- ✓
Redundant network paths
Why this is correct
Redundant network paths eliminate single points of failure and enable traffic to route around outages, sustaining availability while keeping latency low for critical applications. This directly satisfies both stated requirements, unlike additional compute or storage capacity, which addresses neither.
- ✗
Virtualization licenses
Why it's wrong here
Virtualisation licenses govern hypervisor deployment, not the physical fabric carrying storage and application traffic. They are tempting because virtualisation consolidates workloads and supports live migration, which aids availability, but licensing alone neither reduces network latency nor provides the redundant switching and storage paths a data centre build requires.
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JA
Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
This PK0-005 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 PK0-005 exam.