Google ACE Ensuring Successful Operation of a Cloud Solution — 25 Questions

Question 1

You need to monitor the uptime of an external HTTPS endpoint that is critical to your application. Which Google Cloud service should you use to create an uptime check?

Accepted Answer

Cloud Monitoring. Cloud Monitoring provides uptime checks that can monitor HTTP, HTTPS, and TCP endpoints from multiple locations.

Answer

Cloud Debugger

Answer

Cloud Trace

Answer

Cloud Logging

Question 2

You have a Compute Engine VM instance that is currently running. You need to resize it to a different machine type. What must you do first?

Accepted Answer

Stop the instance, then use gcloud compute instances set-machine-type, then start the instance.. Changing the machine type requires the VM to be in a stopped state. You must stop the instance, change the machine type, then start it.

Answer

Use gcloud compute instances update --machine-type while the instance is running.

Answer

Detach all disks, change machine type, then reattach disks.

Answer

Create a snapshot of the disk and use it to create a new instance with the desired machine type.

Question 3

Your GKE cluster is running a deployment with a container image my-app:v1. You need to update it to my-app:v2 and monitor the rollout progress. Which commands should you use?

Accepted Answer

kubectl set image deployment/my-app my-app=my-app:v2 followed by kubectl rollout status deployment/my-app. kubectl set image updates the deployment, and kubectl rollout status monitors progress.

Answer

gcloud compute instances update-container and kubectl get events

Answer

kubectl edit deployment/my-app and change the image, then kubectl rollout undo if needed

Answer

gcloud container clusters upgrade and kubectl get pods

Question 4

You need to export logs from Cloud Logging to a BigQuery dataset for long-term analysis. What should you create?

Accepted Answer

A log sink with BigQuery as the destination. Log sinks are used to route logs to destinations like BigQuery, Cloud Storage, or Pub/Sub.

Answer

An alerting policy with a log-based trigger

Answer

A log-based metric

Answer

An export job in BigQuery

Question 5

You are using Cloud Run and want to split traffic so that 10% of requests go to revision v2 and 90% go to revision v1. Which command should you use?

Accepted Answer

gcloud run services update-traffic --to-revisions v1=90,v2=10. gcloud run services update-traffic allows traffic splitting between revisions.

Answer

gcloud run deploy --image my-image --traffic v1=90,v2=10

Answer

gcloud run services update --traffic v1=90,v2=10

Answer

gcloud run revisions update v2 --traffic 10

Question 6

You have a BigQuery table with billions of rows. You need to create a new table with the same schema and copy all data from the original table. Which approach is most efficient?

Accepted Answer

Use bq query --destination_table mydataset.newtable 'SELECT * FROM mydataset.original'. Using bq query with SELECT * and a destination table is efficient because BigQuery can copy data without exporting and loading.

Answer

Use bq load with an empty file to create the table, then insert data row by row.

Answer

Export the original table to Cloud Storage as Avro, then load into the new table.

Answer

Use bq cp (copy) command.

Question 7

Your application uses Pub/Sub to process orders. You notice that the subscription backlog is growing. Which tool should you use to analyze the latency of each step in the processing pipeline?

Accepted Answer

Cloud Trace. Cloud Trace provides end-to-end latency analysis across distributed services, helping identify bottlenecks.

Answer

Cloud Monitoring

Answer

Cloud Profiler

Answer

Cloud Logging

Question 8

You need to create a snapshot of a persistent disk attached to a running Compute Engine instance. The disk is used by a production database; you want minimal impact. What should you do?

Accepted Answer

Stop the instance, create the snapshot using gcloud compute disks snapshot, then restart the instance.. Creating a snapshot of a disk in use is possible, but for data consistency, it's recommended to stop the instance or at least freeze the filesystem. However, the question says 'minimal impact', so the best practice is to stop the instance. But the correct answer reflects that snapshots can be taken from attached disks, but for database consistency, stop is recommended. Let's choose the safer answer: stop the instance.

Answer

Detach the disk, create the snapshot, then reattach.

Answer

Create the snapshot while the instance is running; snapshots are always consistent.

Answer

Use gcloud compute disks snapshot without stopping; data will be consistent.

Question 9

You want to receive notifications when a specific metric exceeds a threshold. Which Cloud Monitoring resource defines the condition and the action?

Accepted Answer

Alerting policy. An alerting policy defines conditions (metric threshold) and notification channels.

Answer

Dashboard

Answer

Uptime check

Answer

Notification channel

Question 10

Your GKE cluster nodes are running low on resources. You need to enable node pool autoscaling so that the cluster automatically adds and removes nodes based on demand. The node pool is named 'default-pool'. Which command completes this task?

Accepted Answer

gcloud container node-pools update default-pool --enable-autoscaling --min-nodes 1 --max-nodes 10. gcloud container node-pools update with --enable-autoscaling enables autoscaling, and --min-nodes/--max-nodes set boundaries.

Answer

gcloud container node-pools update default-pool --autoscaling enabled

Answer

kubectl autoscale node-pool default-pool --min 1 --max 10

Answer

gcloud container clusters update my-cluster --enable-autoscaling --min-nodes 1 --max-nodes 10

Question 11

You need to query logs in Cloud Logging to find errors from a specific Compute Engine instance. The instance ID is 'my-instance'. Which query language filter should you use?

Accepted Answer

resource.type="gce_instance" AND resource.labels.instance_id="my-instance" AND severity>=ERROR. The filter should specify resource.type and resource.labels.instance_id.

Answer

resource.type="compute.googleapis.com/Instance" AND instance="my-instance" AND severity="ERROR"

Answer

resource.type="gce_instance" AND resource.labels.instance_id="my-instance" AND severity="ERROR"

Answer

resource.type="gce_instance" AND labels."instance_id"="my-instance" AND severity="ERROR"

Question 12

You have a Cloud Run service that you want to update to use a new container image. You also want to keep the previous revision available in case you need to roll back. Which command should you use?

Accepted Answer

gcloud run deploy my-service --image gcr.io/my-project/my-app:v2. gcloud run deploy creates a new revision and by default keeps the previous revision(s).

Answer

gcloud run revisions update my-service --image gcr.io/my-project/my-app:v2

Answer

gcloud run services update --image gcr.io/my-project/my-app:v2

Answer

kubectl set image service/my-service my-app=gcr.io/my-project/my-app:v2

Question 13

You are troubleshooting a slow application that uses multiple microservices. You suspect a particular service is causing high latency. Which TWO Google Cloud tools should you use to identify the root cause? (Select 2)

Accepted Answer

Cloud Monitoring. Cloud Trace traces requests across services to pinpoint latency, and Cloud Monitoring can show metrics like request latency and error rates.

Answer

Cloud Profiler

Answer

Cloud Logging

Answer

Cloud Debugger

Question 14

You need to drain a GKE node for maintenance. Which THREE steps should you perform? (Select 3)

Accepted Answer

Use kubectl drain <node-name> --ignore-daemonsets --delete-emptydir-data. Draining a node evicts pods while respecting PodDisruptionBudgets, and after draining you can perform maintenance or delete the node.

Answer

Cordon the node to prevent new pods

Answer

Use gcloud container clusters upgrade to upgrade the node

Question 15

You want to create a log-based metric to count errors from your application logs. Which TWO resources are required? (Select 2)

Accepted Answer

A filter that matches the error log entries. You need a filter to match error logs and a metric descriptor that defines the metric type.

Answer

An alerting policy

Answer

A log sink

Answer

A notification channel

Question 16

You need to create a log-based metric that counts the number of errors in your application logs. What must you do first in Cloud Logging?

Accepted Answer

Define a filter that matches the error logs. In Cloud Logging, a log-based metric is based on a filter. You define the filter using the logging query language to match the logs you want to count, then create the metric from that filter.

Answer

Create an alerting policy with a condition

Answer

Create a log sink that exports logs to BigQuery

Answer

Install the Logging agent on your VMs

Question 17

You have a Compute Engine VM that is running a critical application. You need to change its machine type from n1-standard-4 to n2-standard-8. What is the correct procedure?

Accepted Answer

Stop the instance, then use gcloud compute instances set-machine-type, then start the instance. To change the machine type of a VM, you must stop the instance first, then use the gcloud compute instances set-machine-type command, and finally start the instance again.

Answer

Use gcloud compute instances update --machine-type n2-standard-8 while the instance is running

Answer

Delete the instance and create a new one with the desired machine type

Answer

Use gcloud compute instances resize --machine-type n2-standard-8 without stopping

Question 18

Your GKE cluster has a node pool that you want to enable autoscaling on. The initial node count is 3, and you want the cluster to scale between 1 and 10 nodes. Which command should you use?

Accepted Answer

gcloud container node-pools update my-pool --cluster=my-cluster --enable-autoscaling --min-nodes 1 --max-nodes 10 --region us-central1. The correct command is gcloud container node-pools update with --enable-autoscaling and the min and max node flags. The cluster name and region/zone are required.

Answer

gcloud container clusters update my-cluster --enable-autoscaling --min-nodes 1 --max-nodes 10 --region us-central1

Answer

gcloud container clusters update my-cluster --enable-autoscaling --min-size 1 --max-size 10 --region us-central1

Answer

gcloud container node-pools update my-pool --cluster=my-cluster --autoscaling --min 1 --max 10 --region us-central1

Question 19

You want to monitor the uptime of an external HTTP endpoint every minute and receive an email notification if the endpoint is unavailable for more than two consecutive checks. What should you do?

Accepted Answer

Create an uptime check in Cloud Monitoring, then create an alerting policy with condition 'metric threshold' for 'check_failed' and set notification channel to email. Uptime checks in Cloud Monitoring can be configured to check HTTP endpoints. You can set alerting conditions based on the duration of the outage and choose email as a notification channel.

Answer

Create a log-based alert in Cloud Logging that triggers on network errors

Answer

Use Cloud Functions to periodically call the endpoint and send an email on failure

Answer

Configure a TCP health check on the load balancer

Question 20

You are deploying a new revision of a Cloud Run service. You want to gradually shift traffic from the old revision to the new one, starting with 10% traffic to the new revision. Which command should you use?

Accepted Answer

gcloud run services update-traffic my-service --to-revision new-revision --percent 10. Cloud Run allows traffic splitting between revisions. The gcloud run services update-traffic command can specify the percentage of traffic for each revision.

Answer

gcloud run revisions traffic my-service --to-revision new-revision --percent 10

Answer

gcloud run services update my-service --image gcr.io/my-project/my-image:new

Answer

gcloud run deploy my-service --image gcr.io/my-project/my-image:new --traffic new-revision=10