VA-003 Explain Vault architecture Practice Question
A company uses Vault Enterprise with Performance Replication. The primary cluster is in us-east-1, and a secondary cluster is in eu-west-1. Clients in eu-west-1 report that they receive stale data when reading from the local secondary cluster's active node. What is the most likely cause?
⚠ Common exam trap
HashiCorp often tests the misconception that stale data on a secondary is always due to network latency or cluster failover issues, when in fact replication filters are a deliberate configuration that can cause selective staleness.
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 replication filter is excluding certain paths.
In Vault Enterprise Performance Replication, replication filters can be configured to exclude specific paths (e.g., secret engines or policies) from being replicated to secondary clusters. If a filter excludes certain paths, the secondary cluster will not receive updates for those paths, causing clients reading from the local secondary to see stale or missing data. This matches the symptom of stale reads on the secondary's active node.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
The secondary cluster has not enabled performance standby.
Why it's wrong here
Performance standbys let a secondary's standby nodes serve local read traffic; without them enabled, requests route to the primary, adding latency rather than staleness. Stale reads stem from replication lag on the secondary's active node, which is expected behaviour for performance replication secondaries. Performance standbys address read scaling, not freshness.
- ✓
The replication filter is excluding certain paths.
Why this is correct
Performance Replication asynchronously streams data to secondaries, and replication filters determine which paths replicate. Excluding paths means those reads never reach eu-west-1, so clients there see stale or missing values until the filter is corrected.
- ✗
The cluster is in 'primary_failover' mode.
Why it's wrong here
'primary_failover' is a DR replication promotion mode, not a state that causes stale reads on a performance secondary; it governs how a secondary can be promoted during disaster recovery. Staleness here reflects normal asynchronous replication lag from us-east-1. That mode would be relevant when planning DR failover, not routine local reads.
- ✗
The secondary cluster is in primary state instead of secondary.
Why it's wrong here
A performance secondary remains a secondary regardless; its active node serves reads from replicated data, and staleness is normal asynchronous replication lag, not a state misconfiguration. A cluster in primary state would not be receiving replicated data at all. Primary state is correct for the source cluster originating writes.
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Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
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