PK0-005 Practice Question: Basics of IT Infrastructure and IT Project Management
You are the project manager for a mid-sized company that provides an online customer portal. The portal is hosted on a single virtual machine (VM) in the company's on-premises data center with 4 vCPUs, 16 GB RAM, and a 500 GB HDD. The VM runs Windows Server 2019 and hosts both the web server (IIS) and the database (SQL Server Express). Users have been reporting slow performance, especially during peak hours (10 AM - 2 PM). The system administrator notes that CPU usage spikes to 95% during those times, and disk I/O latency averages 50 ms. The company's budget is limited, and they want a cost-effective solution that can be implemented within two weeks. The project sponsor suggests migrating to the cloud, but the IT director is concerned about security and compliance. The company has no existing cloud infrastructure or virtual private network (VPN) to the cloud. You need to propose a solution that improves performance without incurring high costs or long delays. Which of the following is the BEST course of action?
⚠ Common exam trap
It's easy for candidates to choose Option D (compression) thinking it reduces load, but they overlook that compression adds CPU overhead and does not fix the core issue of resource contention between IIS and SQL Server on a single VM.
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
✓
Create two separate VMs: one for the web server with 2 vCPUs and 8 GB RAM, and one for the database with 2 vCPUs and 8 GB RAM. Replace the HDD with an SSD on both VMs.
Separating the web server and database onto two VMs eliminates resource contention between IIS and SQL Server Express, which is the root cause of the CPU and I/O spikes. Replacing the HDD with SSDs reduces disk I/O latency from 50 ms to under 1 ms, directly addressing the performance bottleneck. This solution is cost-effective and can be implemented within two weeks using existing on-premises hardware, without requiring cloud migration or VPN setup.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Migrate the entire portal to a public cloud provider using a lift-and-shift approach, and set up a VPN connection for security.
Why it's wrong here
This solution is costly and time-consuming (VPN setup, migration) and exceeds the budget and timeline constraints. It also increases security complexity and compliance risks.
- ✗
Upgrade the existing VM by adding more RAM and using a faster HDD with a larger cache.
Why it's wrong here
Adding more RAM may help with memory pressure, but does not address the high CPU usage or the disk I/O bottleneck (HDD still slow). Also, increasing RAM may require downtime and is not a full solution.
- ✓
Create two separate VMs: one for the web server with 2 vCPUs and 8 GB RAM, and one for the database with 2 vCPUs and 8 GB RAM. Replace the HDD with an SSD on both VMs.
Why this is correct
Separating the roles reduces resource contention, and SSDs dramatically improve disk I/O. This can be done quickly with existing hardware and budget, and keeps the environment on-premises for security and compliance.
- ✗
Implement IIS compression and enable SQL Server data compression to reduce CPU and I/O load.
Why it's wrong here
Compression can reduce network and disk usage, but it actually increases CPU usage, which is already a bottleneck. This does not address the root cause and may worsen performance.
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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.