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 standby is for read scaling within a cluster, not for replication across clusters.
- ✓
The replication filter is excluding certain paths.
Why this is correct
If paths are excluded from replication, the secondary will not see updates, leading to stale data.
- ✗
The cluster is in 'primary_failover' mode.
Why it's wrong here
There is no such mode; failover is handled by DR replication.
- ✗
The secondary cluster is in primary state instead of secondary.
Why it's wrong here
If the secondary were in primary state, it would be writable but not necessarily stale; it would not receive updates from the original primary.
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Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
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