IBM Cloud Pak for Data v4.x Administrator Advanced Practice Exam: Hard Questions 2025

During a multi-node Cloud Pak for Data deployment on OpenShift, you encounter persistent storage issues where Watson Studio pods fail to start with 'FailedMount' errors. Upon investigation, you discover that the storage class is configured with 'volumeBindingMode: Immediate' and some PVCs remain in 'Pending' state. The cluster has 5 worker nodes across 3 availability zones with dynamic provisioning enabled. What is the MOST likely root cause and appropriate remediation strategy?

Your organization has implemented SAML 2.0 SSO with Cloud Pak for Data, and users report intermittent authentication failures with 'Invalid SAML Response' errors. The SAML trace shows successful IdP authentication but CP4D rejects some assertions. You notice that users in certain time zones experience more failures during specific hours. The IdP clock shows accurate time, and certificates are valid for another year. What is the MOST probable cause and solution?

After upgrading Cloud Pak for Data from v4.0 to v4.6, several custom operator-based services fail to reconcile, showing 'OLM resolution failed' errors. The platform components are functioning normally. You discover that custom CatalogSources reference deprecated operator versions, and some Custom Resource Definitions show multiple versions. What is the BEST approach to resolve this while maintaining service continuity?

A Cloud Pak for Data cluster experiences performance degradation specifically affecting Watson Machine Learning inference requests. Monitoring shows that zen-core-api pods have high CPU utilization (85%+) during peak hours, but etcd and database metrics appear normal. Application logs show increased latency in authorization checks. You have 3 zen-core-api replicas running. What is the MOST effective optimization strategy?

You are designing a multi-tenancy strategy for Cloud Pak for Data supporting 50+ development teams with strict data isolation requirements. Each team needs isolated compute resources, separate catalog management, and the ability to share selected assets with specific other teams. Compliance requires audit trails for all cross-team data access. What architecture provides the BEST balance of isolation, collaboration, and operational efficiency?

During a security audit, you discover that certain service accounts have cluster-admin privileges in your Cloud Pak for Data environment. The audit requires implementing least-privilege access. However, when you attempt to reduce permissions for the cpd-operator service account to namespace-scoped roles, the operator fails to manage cluster-wide Custom Resource Definitions and cannot update ClusterRoleBindings for new service deployments. What is the PROPER approach to maintain functionality while improving security posture?

Your Cloud Pak for Data platform experiences cascading failures where a spike in Watson Knowledge Catalog indexing jobs causes MongoDB to become unresponsive, which then causes zen-watcher to fail liveness probes and restart repeatedly, eventually destabilizing the entire control plane. MongoDB metrics show connection pool exhaustion during these events. What is the MOST comprehensive solution to prevent this failure cascade?

You are investigating performance issues where Data Virtualization queries against federated data sources timeout intermittently. Network traces show that queries to on-premises Oracle databases succeed initially but subsequent queries to the same connection fail with 'connection reset' errors. The issue occurs more frequently after periods of query inactivity (15+ minutes). Firewall logs show no blocked connections. What is the MOST likely root cause and solution?

An organization needs to implement disaster recovery for Cloud Pak for Data across two geographically distributed OpenShift clusters with RPO of 1 hour and RTO of 4 hours. The deployment includes Watson Studio, Watson Machine Learning with deployed models, and governance catalogs with extensive metadata. What DR strategy provides the BEST balance of meeting requirements while minimizing complexity?

After enabling audit logging in Cloud Pak for Data, the audit pod (usermgmt-audit-xxx) enters CrashLoopBackOff with OOMKilled status. Logs show the pod processes audit events successfully for approximately 15 minutes before terminating. You have 5000+ active users generating significant audit volume. The pod is configured with 2Gi memory limit. What is the MOST effective resolution that maintains complete audit trail integrity?