The Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF) has been a driving force behind numerous open-source technologies in the realm of IT enterprise. From Kubernetes to Envoy, CNCF’s contributions have shaped the tech landscape. Test your knowledge of these innovative projects and tools.
The Cloud Native Computing Foundation, established in 2015, has been instrumental in bringing forth a wide array of enterprise technologies. These technologies, focusing on areas such as containers, microservices, and service mesh platforms, have left a lasting impact on the IT industry.
Within the CNCF, the projects are the core building blocks developed and researched by its members. These projects undergo a lifecycle comprised of three phases: sandbox, incubating, and graduated. These phases serve as markers of a project’s maturity and readiness for adoption within the enterprise.
Each phase has distinct attributes and requirements. For instance, the sandbox phase, which is the starting point for new projects, mandates a minimum of two sponsors from the CNCF Technical Oversight Committee. Incubating projects must satisfy all sandbox requirements and additional criteria, including demonstrating successful use by at least three independent end users in production environments.
To reach the graduated stage, a CNCF project must fulfill both sandbox and incubating prerequisites and undergo an independent third-party security audit, along with meeting other specific requirements.
Now that you’ve grasped the fundamentals, it’s time to put your knowledge of CNCF projects to the test. See how well you know these essential technologies that have had a significant impact on the world of IT.
Table of Contents
Question 1
Which container orchestration tool was the first to be donated to the CNCF?
A. Helm
B. CRI-O
C. Kubernetes
D. Docker Swarm
Answer
C. Kubernetes
Explanation
While Docker Swarm is a container orchestration tool, it is not a CNCF project. Kubernetes was not only the first project to graduate, but also the inaugural CNCF project. This open source container management platform scales and automates deployments. It also provides features such as service discovery and automatic bin packing.
Question 2
Which CNCF project and monitoring tool uses a time-series approach to track metrics and was originally built at SoundCloud?
A. Cortex
B. Prometheus
C. Thanos
D. OpenMetrics
Answer
B. Prometheus
Explanation
Created in 2012, Prometheus includes features such as a multidimensional data model that identifies time-series data by metric name and key-value pairs. It became a CNCF project in 2016.
Question 3
Which service mesh framework launched in 2016, primarily targeting Kubernetes deployments, and became a CNCF project in 2017?
A. Linkerd
B. Istio
C. CoreDNS
D. Helm
Answer
A. Linkerd
Explanation
Linkerd helps manage and secure communications between distributed services, and it offers capabilities such as load balancing, service discovery and failure recovery. This service mesh platform runs as a stand-alone proxy that can be used for either containers or microservices.
Question 4
Lyft created which service proxy for large-scale microservices architectures?
A. Nginx
B. Envoy
C. F5
D. OpenResty
Answer
B. Envoy
Explanation
Envoy is a C++ distributed proxy designed for microservices and service mesh architectures. The technology acts a ‘sidecar’ that runs alongside application components to simplify networking in large-scale deployments. Envoy is a graduated CNCF project.
Question 5
Kubernetes uses which CNCF project to store cluster data and maintain state?
A. CoreDNS
B. Consul
C. Nacos
D. Etcd
Answer
D. Etcd
Explanation
Etcd, a distributed key-value store, stores critical data for distributed systems or compute clusters in hierarchically organized directories. The tool stores metadata and other information in a fault-tolerant method, and an application can read and write data into etcd.
Question 6
Which open source tool, developed by Uber Technologies, monitors microservices-based architecture?
A. Jaeger
B. Rook
C. Vitess
D. Zipkin
Answer
A. Jaeger
Explanation
Jaeger, a distributed tracing tool, aims to address several monitoring and observability challenges in distributed architectures, such as transaction monitoring, performance optimization, root cause analysis and service dependency analysis. Written in Go, Jaeger’s architecture focuses on scalability and parallelism.
Question 7
Built as a package manager, which CNCF project aims to simplify Kubernetes application installation?
A. Helm
B. KubeVirt
C. Skaffold
D. OpenAPI
Answer
A. Helm
Explanation
In 2018, Helm traded its status as a subproject under Kubernetes to become its own CNCF-hosted project. This package manager enables enterprises to find, share and use software built for Kubernetes. Helm charts — the tool’s packaging format — are files that describe a set of Kubernetes resources. Other Helm features include the capability to create reproducible builds of Kubernetes applications and to manage Kubernetes manifest files.
Question 8
Which logging tool is a graduated CNCF project that enables enterprises to unify data collection?
A. Papertrail
B. Harbor
C. Nagios
D. Fluentd
Answer
D. Fluentd
Explanation
The CNCF Cloud Native Trail Map recommends Fluentd as an observability and analysis tool, specifically for logging. Fluentd provides a unified logging layer for multiple data sources and enables data analysts to use logs as they are generated.
Question 9
Which open source tool enables service discovery and was the first CNCF project to graduate in 2019?
A. Consul
B. CoreDNS
C. Nacos
D. Containerd
Answer
B. CoreDNS
Explanation
CoreDNS — a DNS server written in Go — completes basic DNS server tasks and also offers service discovery for cloud-native deployments. As of the Kubernetes release 1.13, CoreDNS is the recommended default domain name server for all Kubernetes deployments moving forward.
Question 10
Which container runtime software began at Docker and became a graduated CNCF project in 2019?
A. Rkt
B. CRI-O
C. Containerd
D. Firecracker
Answer
C. Containerd
Explanation
Containerd uses application programming interfaces to manage its host system’s container lifecycle. Most enterprises use this CNCF project to abstract system calls or OS-specific functionality. It runs as a daemon for Linux and Windows.