PCDOE Managing service incidents Practice Question
This PCDOE practice question tests your understanding of managing service incidents. The scenario asks you to isolate a root cause — eliminate options that address a different problem before choosing. After answering, compare your reasoning against the explanation and wrong-answer breakdown below. Once you have made your selection, read the full explanation to reinforce the concept and understand why each distractor is designed to mislead on exam day.
Your application runs in two GCP regions. A regional outage occurs in the primary region. You have a Cloud Load Balancer with a failover backend. However, the failover did not trigger because the health check passed on a stale connection. What is the best solution?
Clue words in this question
Noticing these words before you look at the options changes how you read each choice.
Clue: "best"
Why it matters: Signals that multiple options may be partially correct. Choose the option that most directly solves the exact problem described, not the one that sounds most complete.
Clue: "primary"
Why it matters: Asks for the main purpose or function, not a secondary benefit. Eliminate answers that describe side-effects or partial functions.
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
✓
Use a global load balancer with HTTP health checks based on application health.
Option B is correct because a global load balancer with HTTP health checks can probe the actual application endpoint (e.g., /healthz) to verify end-to-end functionality, not just TCP connectivity. This prevents the stale connection issue where a TCP health check passes on an existing but broken session, ensuring failover triggers only when the application is genuinely unhealthy.
Key principle: Answer the scenario, not the keyword: identify the specific constraint before choosing the most familiar-sounding option.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
✗
Use a passive health check.
Why it's wrong here
Passive health checks rely on observing traffic, not proactive detection.
✓
Use a global load balancer with HTTP health checks based on application health.
Why this is correct
HTTP health checks test actual application response, reducing false positives.
Clue confirmation
The clue words "best", "primary" in the question point toward this answer.
Related concept
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
✗
Configure a custom health check that checks the database.
Why it's wrong here
Database health check may not reflect application health accurately.
✗
Use TCP health checks with a shorter interval.
Why it's wrong here
Shortening interval may not solve the stale connection issue.
Common exam traps
Common exam trap: answer the scenario, not the keyword
The trap here is that candidates assume TCP health checks are sufficient for failover, but Cisco tests the nuance that stale connections can mask application failure, requiring application-layer (HTTP) health checks to ensure true failover.
Detailed technical explanation
How to think about this question
HTTP health checks use a configurable request path and response code (e.g., 200 OK) to confirm the application is serving correctly. Under the hood, the load balancer opens a new TCP connection for each health check probe, avoiding reliance on existing connections that may be stale. In a real-world scenario, a regional outage might leave TCP connections intact but the application process dead; HTTP health checks catch this by requiring a fresh application-level response.
KKey Concepts to Remember
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
Find the constraint that changes the correct option.
Eliminate answers that are true in general but not in this case.
TExam Day Tips
→Watch for words such as best, first, most likely and least administrative effort.
→Review why wrong options are wrong, not only why the correct option is correct.
Key takeaway
Answer the scenario, not the keyword: identify the specific constraint before choosing the most familiar-sounding option.
Real-world example
How this comes up in practice
A cloud solutions architect for a retail company is evaluating services for a new workload. The correct answer here reflects best practice for the specific scenario described — not a general cloud recommendation. Answer the scenario, not the keyword: identify the specific constraint before choosing the most familiar-sounding option. Cloud exam questions reward reading the constraint carefully: the same technology can be right or wrong depending on the use case.
What to study next
Got this wrong? Here's your next step.
Identify which exam domain this question belongs to, review the core concept, then practise similar questions from the same domain.
Managing service incidents — This question tests Managing service incidents — Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer..
What is the correct answer to this question?
The correct answer is: Use a global load balancer with HTTP health checks based on application health. — Option B is correct because a global load balancer with HTTP health checks can probe the actual application endpoint (e.g., /healthz) to verify end-to-end functionality, not just TCP connectivity. This prevents the stale connection issue where a TCP health check passes on an existing but broken session, ensuring failover triggers only when the application is genuinely unhealthy.
What should I do if I get this PCDOE question wrong?
Identify which exam domain this question belongs to, review the core concept, then practise similar questions from the same domain.
Are there clue words in this question I should notice?
Yes — watch for: "best", "primary". Signals that multiple options may be partially correct. Choose the option that most directly solves the exact problem described, not the one that sounds most complete.
What is the key concept behind this question?
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
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Question Discussion
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