CAD CAD Disaster Recovery & High Availability 2 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: In a CyberArk cluster (high-availability) setup, which component provides load balancing and failover for PVWA connections?
- CyberArk Cluster Vault Manager
- An external load balancer (e.g., F5, HAProxy) (Correct answer)
- PrivateArk Replication Engine
- Vault Cluster Broker
Correct answer: An external load balancer (e.g., F5, HAProxy)
An external load balancer is placed in front of multiple PVWA nodes to distribute user connections and provide failover for the web interface tier.
Question 2: What happens to active PSM sessions during a CyberArk primary Vault failover to the DR Vault?
- Sessions continue uninterrupted automatically
- Sessions are gracefully migrated to the DR Vault
- Active sessions are terminated and users must reconnect (Correct answer)
- Sessions are paused and resume after failover completes
Correct answer: Active sessions are terminated and users must reconnect
Active PSM sessions are dropped during a Vault failover; users must re-authenticate and initiate new sessions once the DR Vault is promoted.
Question 3: Which CyberArk configuration parameter in Vault.ini defines the list of Vault cluster node addresses for high availability?
- ClusterVaults (Correct answer)
- VaultFailoverIPs
- BackupVaultAddress
- HAVaultNodes
Correct answer: ClusterVaults
The ClusterVaults parameter in Vault.ini lists all node IP addresses in a Vault cluster, enabling clients to discover and connect to any available node.
Question 4: In a CyberArk HA environment, which Vault component manages the distribution of requests across multiple Vault cluster nodes?
- PrivateArk Client Cluster Manager
- CyberArk Cluster Vault Manager (CVM) (Correct answer)
- Vault Load Dispatcher
- PrivateArk HA Engine
Correct answer: CyberArk Cluster Vault Manager (CVM)
The CyberArk Cluster Vault Manager (CVM) coordinates node membership, heartbeat monitoring, and request routing across Vault cluster nodes.
Question 5: What is the minimum number of Vault nodes recommended in a CyberArk Cluster Vault Manager (CVM) deployment to avoid split-brain scenarios?
- 2
- 3 (Correct answer)
- 4
- 5
Correct answer: 3
A minimum of 3 nodes is recommended in a CVM cluster to achieve quorum and prevent split-brain, where two equal partitions each claim to be primary.
Question 6: During a planned CyberArk Vault maintenance window, which procedure ensures CPM and PVWA remain available while the primary Vault is offline?
- Place Vault in read-only mode
- Failover to the DR Vault before maintenance begins (Correct answer)
- Pause CPM and notify users of downtime
- Switch all connections to a satellite Vault
Correct answer: Failover to the DR Vault before maintenance begins
Performing a controlled failover to the DR Vault before maintenance allows PVWA and CPM to continue operating against the now-active DR node.
CAD CAD Disaster Recovery & High Availability 2
In a CyberArk cluster (high-availability) setup, which component provides load balancing and failover for PVWA connections?