A cloud engineer needs to enable monitoring on a virtual machine instance within a cloud service provider. The engineer must monitor the resources related to the amount of memory an application is utilizing. Which of the following metrics should the engineer monitor for memory as it relates to disk performance?
A. Heap utilization
B. Swap usage
C. IOPS consumption
D. Queue depth
Show Answer
Correct Answer: B
Explanation: Swap usage is the memory-related metric that directly affects disk performance. When physical RAM is exhausted, the operating system swaps memory pages to disk, increasing disk I/O and reducing performance. Heap utilization measures application memory allocation, while IOPS consumption and queue depth are storage performance metrics rather than memory metrics.
Question 12
Following a ransomware attack, the legal department at a company instructs the IT administrator to store the data from the affected virtual machines for a minimum of one year.
Which of the following is this an example of?
A. Recoverability
B. Retention
C. Encryption
D. Integrity
Show Answer
Correct Answer: B
Explanation: Storing data from affected virtual machines for a minimum of one year is a data retention requirement. Retention refers to preserving data for a specified period, often to satisfy legal, regulatory, investigative, or compliance obligations. It is not recoverability (restoring systems), encryption (protecting data confidentiality), or integrity (ensuring data has not been altered).
Question 13
A company wants to optimize cloud resources and lower the overhead caused by managing multiple operating systems. Which of the following compute resources would be best to help to achieve this goal?
A. VM
B. Containers
C. Remote desktops
D. Bare-metal servers
Show Answer
Correct Answer: B
Explanation: Containers share the host operating system kernel, allowing multiple applications to run with far less overhead than virtual machines, which each require their own guest OS. This reduces operating system management effort while improving resource utilization, making containers the best choice for optimizing cloud resources and lowering OS management overhead.
Question 14
An organization needs to retain its data for compliance reasons but only when required. Which of the following would be the most cost-effective type of tiered storage?
A. Warm
B. Hot
C. Archive
D. Cold
Show Answer
Correct Answer: C
Explanation: Archive storage is designed for long-term retention of infrequently accessed data. It offers the lowest storage cost among common tiers, making it the most cost-effective choice for compliance-driven retention where data only needs to be accessed occasionally.
Question 15
Which of the following container storage types loses data after a restart?
A. Object
B. Persistent volume
C. Ephemeral
D. Block
Show Answer
Correct Answer: C
Explanation: Ephemeral storage is temporary storage tied to the lifecycle of a container or pod. Data stored there is lost when the container or pod restarts or is recreated. Persistent volumes are designed to retain data across restarts, while object and block describe storage interfaces rather than inherently ephemeral behavior.
Question 16
A cloud architect attempts to modify a protected branch but is unable to do so. The architect receives an error indicating the action cannot be completed. Which of the following should the architect try instead?
A. Adding a new remote
B. Creating a pull request
C. Merging the branch
D. Rebasing the branch
Show Answer
Correct Answer: B
Explanation: Protected branches are designed to prevent direct changes. The standard workflow is to make changes in another branch and submit a pull request for review and merging into the protected branch. Adding a remote, merging locally, or rebasing does not bypass branch protection rules.
Question 17
A company runs a discussion forum that caters to global users. The company’s monitoring system reports that the home page suddenly is seeing elevated response times, even though internal monitoring has reported no issues or changes. Which of the following is the most likely cause of this issue?
A. Cryptojacking
B. Human error
C. DDos
D. Phishing
Show Answer
Correct Answer: C
Explanation: A sudden increase in response times affecting global users while internal monitoring shows no system issues is most consistent with a Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack. A DDoS overwhelms the service or network with malicious traffic, degrading external responsiveness even when the underlying infrastructure appears healthy. Cryptojacking primarily consumes compute resources, human error would typically correlate with a recent change or misconfiguration, and phishing does not cause elevated website response times.
Question 18
Which of the following can eliminate the risk of CI/CD pipelines leaking secrets on containers?
A. Peer-reviewed pull requests
B. Use of a VM instead of containers
C. Private image repositories
D. Canary tests
Show Answer
Correct Answer: C
Explanation: Among the options, using a private image repository reduces exposure of container images and any embedded sensitive data to unauthorized users. The other choices do not eliminate or directly address the risk of secrets leaking from CI/CD pipelines: peer review may catch issues but is not sufficient, VMs do not inherently prevent secret leakage, and canary tests validate deployments rather than protect secrets.
Sources:
https://xygeni.io/blog/docker-secrets-in-cicd-stop-leaking-sensitive-data
Question 19
A cloud administrator shortens the amount of time a backup runs. An executive in the company requires a guarantee that the backups can be restored with no data loss. Which of the following backup features should the administrator test for?
A. Encryption
B. Retention
C. Schedule
D. Integrity
Show Answer
Correct Answer: D
Explanation: Integrity testing verifies that backups are complete, uncorrupted, and can be successfully restored without data loss. Encryption protects confidentiality, retention governs how long backups are kept, and scheduling affects when backups run, not whether they restore correctly.
Question 20
A social networking company operates globally. Some users from Brazil and Argentina are reporting the following error: website address was not found. Which of the following is the most likely cause of this issue?
A. Client DNS misconfiguration
B. Regional DNS provider outage
C. DNS server misconfiguration
D. DNSSEC key mismatch
Show Answer
Correct Answer: B
Explanation: The error affects users only in specific geographic regions (Brazil and Argentina), while the service operates globally. A regional DNS provider outage is the most likely explanation because name resolution would fail only for users relying on the affected regional infrastructure. A client DNS misconfiguration would typically affect individual users, a DNS server misconfiguration at the company's authoritative servers would likely have broader impact, and a DNSSEC key mismatch would generally affect validating resolvers more widely rather than only two neighboring regions.
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