CISA Practice Question: Information Systems Operations and Business Resilience
An IS auditor is assessing the capacity management process for a virtualized data center. The auditor finds that CPU and memory utilization on a cluster of hosts regularly exceeds 85 percent during month-end processing, causing performance degradation. Management states that they monitor utilization but have no formal forecasting or trend analysis. Which of the following is the MOST significant risk arising from this situation?
⚠ Common exam trap
The trap here is focusing on secondary IT management concerns like chargeback or licensing when the scenario's core issue is the lack of predictive capacity planning leading to operational disruption.
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
✓
Unplanned outages and service degradation during peak business periods.
The absence of forecasting and trend analysis in a capacity management process means the organization cannot anticipate resource demands. With utilization already exceeding 85 percent during month-end, the most significant risk is that peak loads will exhaust resources, causing outages or severe performance issues. This directly impacts business operations and service availability. Other concerns like chargeback or licensing are less immediate and not indicated by the scenario.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Inaccurate chargeback to business units for IT resource consumption.
Why it's wrong here
While poor capacity management can affect chargeback accuracy, the scenario does not mention chargeback processes. The immediate and most significant risk is operational: performance degradation and potential outages during critical processing periods. Chargeback inaccuracies are a secondary concern and not the primary risk when systems are already stressed and no forecasting exists.
- ✗
Noncompliance with software licensing agreements due to overutilization.
Why it's wrong here
Licensing compliance is generally tied to the number of processors, cores, or users, not to real-time utilization percentages. High CPU or memory usage does not inherently breach license terms. The scenario does not suggest any licensing issue. The most significant risk is the operational impact of resource exhaustion, not a licensing violation.
- ✗
Inability to recover from a disaster within the recovery time objective.
Why it's wrong here
Capacity management affects performance and availability, but disaster recovery capability depends on the DR plan, alternate site capacity, and backup restoration procedures. The scenario focuses on routine month-end processing, not a disaster. While capacity shortfalls could complicate recovery, the direct and most significant risk is service degradation during peak periods, not DR failure.
- ✓
Unplanned outages and service degradation during peak business periods.
Why this is correct
Without forecasting or trend analysis, capacity shortfalls during predictable peaks such as month-end can lead to resource exhaustion, causing outages or severe performance degradation. This directly threatens service availability and business operations. The risk is significant because the organization already experiences high utilization and has no forward-looking process to anticipate and remediate capacity constraints before they impact users.
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JA
Written and reviewed by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
Last reviewed September 2026 · checked against the official ISACA exam blueprint
This CISA practice question is part of Courseiva's free ISACA 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 CISA exam.