A common approach to solve application performance issues is to add more hardware. Which two reasons describe why this alone does not always solve performance problems?

Question

Options

• AThere may be a bottleneck in the application that additional hardware would not solve.
• BAdding more hardware is costly and time consuming.
• CAdding hardware at the application layer may place additional load on an already overloaded
• DAdding more hardware may introduce new configuration requirements that need to be tested.

• A
  84% (32)
• B
  5% (2)
• D
  11% (4)

Explanation

Adding more hardware fails when the real problem is a software bottleneck (A) - for example, a single-threaded process, a deadlock, or an inefficient database query that no amount of CPU or RAM can fix. Similarly, adding hardware at the application layer (C) can shift the bottleneck downstream: if your app servers suddenly handle more load, they may overwhelm a database or backend service that was already struggling.

Why B and D are wrong: Cost and time (B) are valid business concerns, but they don't explain why hardware fails to solve the problem - just that it may be impractical. New configuration requirements (D) are a real operational concern, but again describe a side effect of adding hardware, not a reason it won't resolve the performance issue.

Memory tip: Think of it as a pipe and pump analogy - adding a bigger pump (more hardware) won't help if there's a kink in the pipe (bottleneck) or if the pipe feeding the next stage is too narrow (downstream overload). The two technical failure reasons are always about where the actual constraint lives, not cost or complexity.

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