Google ACE Ensuring Successful Operation of a Cloud Solution Practice Test 2 — 15 Questions

Question 1

A team needs to analyze application logs to find errors from the last 24 hours. The logs are stored in Cloud Logging. Which query language filters would select log entries where the severity is ERROR and the resource type is a GCE VM instance?

Choose an answer to begin — your selection is scored in the full session.

Accepted Answer

resource.type = 'gce_instance' AND severity = 'ERROR'. Cloud Logging query language uses field names like `resource.type` and `severity`. For exact matches, the `=` operator is used, and string values are enclosed in single quotes. Logical operators like `AND` are used to combine conditions.

Answer

resource.type:gce_instance AND severity:ERROR

Answer

resource.type == 'gce_instance' && severity == 'ERROR'

Answer

type='gce_instance' AND level='ERROR'

Question 2

You are designing a disaster recovery plan for a stateful application running on Compute Engine. You need to create crash-consistent backups of persistent disks every hour and store them in a different region for at least 30 days. Which TWO steps should you take? (Choose two.)

Accepted Answer

Copy the snapshot to a different region using gcloud compute snapshots create --source-snapshot --region. For 'crash-consistent backups of persistent disks every hour and store them in a different region for at least 30 days':

1.  **Automated Frequency and Retention**: The most appropriate step for creating backups 'every hour' and ensuring 'at least 30 days' retention is to create a snapshot schedule using `gcloud compute resource-policies` (Option D). Google Cloud persistent disk snapshots are inherently block-level crash-consistent, meaning they can be taken while the VM is running. Stopping the VM (Option A) is not required for this level of consistency and is typically done for filesystem or application consistency.

2.  **Cross-region Storage**: Snapshot schedules create snapshots in the same region as the source disk. To store these backups in a 'different region', you must copy the snapshots. This is achieved by creating a new snapshot from an existing one and specifying the desired `storage-location`. The correct command syntax for this would be `gcloud compute snapshots create NEW_SNAPSHOT_NAME --source-snapshot SOURCE_SNAPSHOT_NAME --storage-location TARGET_REGION`. Option B attempts to describe this, but its command syntax (`--region` instead of `--storage-location`) is incorrect for specifying the destination region.

Therefore, the most accurate steps to fulfill all requirements are to use a snapshot schedule (D) and then copy the snapshots to a different region (a corrected version of B).

Answer

Stop the VM before taking each snapshot

Answer

Use gcloud compute images create to create a custom image from the snapshot, then export to a different region

Answer

Use gcloud compute snapshots create with the --source-disk flag while the VM is running

Question 3

A developer needs to check the latest logs from a Compute Engine instance to debug a failed startup script. They want to filter logs from the last hour with severity ERROR or higher. Which Cloud Logging query language filter should they use?

Accepted Answer

resource.type="gce_instance"
timestamp>="-1h"
severity>=ERROR. The correct filter is A. It uses `resource.type="gce_instance"` to target Compute Engine instances, `timestamp>="-1h"` to get logs from the last hour, and `severity>=ERROR` to capture ERROR, CRITICAL, ALERT, and EMERGENCY levels. Option B is incorrect because `severity=ERROR` matches only ERROR, not higher severities. Option C uses a wrong resource type and `timestamp<"-1h"` which is before the last hour. Option D uses `resource.labels.instance_id="*"` which is not a valid wildcard syntax for instance IDs.

Answer

resource.type="gce_instance"
severity=ERROR
timestamp>="-1h"

Answer

resource.type="compute.googleapis.com/Instance"
severity>=ERROR
timestamp<"-1h"

Answer

resource.labels.instance_id="*"
severity>=ERROR
timestamp>="-3600s"

Question 4

Your organization runs a stateful workload on a Compute Engine VM with a 500 GB persistent disk. You need to resize the VM to a machine type with more CPUs and memory, while minimizing downtime. You also need to ensure the disk is backed up before the change. What is the correct sequence of steps?

Accepted Answer

1. gcloud compute instances stop VM_NAME
2. gcloud compute disks snapshot DISK_NAME --snapshot-names backup-snapshot
3. gcloud compute instances set-machine-type VM_NAME --machine-type n1-standard-8
4. gcloud compute instances start VM_NAME. To change the machine type of a Compute Engine VM, the VM must be stopped. Option A correctly sequences: stop the VM first, then create a disk snapshot for backup, then change the machine type, then start the VM. Option C uses a valid snapshot command but the order is the same as A; however, option A is marked correct. Option B fails because it attempts to change the machine type without stopping the VM first, which is not allowed. Option D also changes the machine type without stopping and creates a snapshot after starting, which is incorrect.

Answer

1. gcloud compute snapshots create backup-snapshot --disk DISK_NAME
2. gcloud compute instances set-machine-type VM_NAME --machine-type n1-standard-8
3. gcloud compute instances start VM_NAME

Answer

1. gcloud compute instances stop VM_NAME
2. gcloud compute snapshots create backup-snapshot --source-disk DISK_NAME --source-disk-zone ZONE
3. gcloud compute instances set-machine-type VM_NAME --machine-type n1-standard-8
4. gcloud compute instances start VM_NAME

Answer

1. gcloud compute instances set-machine-type VM_NAME --machine-type n1-standard-8
2. gcloud compute snapshots create backup-snapshot --disk DISK_NAME
3. gcloud compute instances start VM_NAME

Question 5

Your GKE cluster has a node pool that is underutilized. You want to enable cluster autoscaling to automatically adjust the number of nodes based on workload demand. Which TWO steps are required? (Choose two.)

Accepted Answer

Specify --min-nodes and --max-nodes parameters. To enable cluster autoscaling on a GKE node pool, you need to specify minimum and maximum node limits (option B) and enable autoscaling on the specific node pool using `gcloud container node-pools update` with the `--enable-autoscaling` flag (option E). Option A is incorrect because upgrading the control plane is unrelated to autoscaling. Option C is incorrect because `gcloud container clusters update` does not accept a `--node-pool` flag for enabling autoscaling on a pool. Option D is incorrect because `--autoscaling-profile` is an optional tuning parameter, not a required step.

Answer

Upgrade the control plane to the latest version

Answer

Run gcloud container clusters update CLUSTER_NAME --node-pool POOL_NAME --enable-autoscaling

Answer

Set the --autoscaling-profile option to 'optimize-utilization'

Question 6

You need to export all logs from Cloud Logging to a BigQuery dataset for long-term analysis. The export should include logs from all projects in the organization. Which TWO actions should you take? (Choose two.)

Accepted Answer

Create a log sink with destination type BigQuery dataset. To export logs to BigQuery for analysis, you must create a log sink with the destination type set to BigQuery dataset (option B). To include logs from all projects within the organization, you must create the sink at the organization level (option D), which allows the sink to aggregate logs from all projects under that organization. Option A is incorrect because a Cloud Storage bucket is not the desired destination for BigQuery analysis. Option C is incorrect because log-based metrics are used for monitoring and alerting, not exporting logs. Option E is incorrect because creating sinks at the project level individually would require managing multiple sinks and does not leverage the organization-wide aggregation provided by an organization-level sink. Therefore, the correct actions are B and D.

Answer

Create a log sink with destination type Cloud Storage bucket

Answer

Create a log-based metric to filter the logs

Answer

Create the sink at the project level for each project individually

Question 7

You are managing a Cloud Run service that has two revisions: v1 (serving 100% traffic) and v2 (new revision). You want to shift 10% of traffic to v2 gradually. Which TWO steps should you take? (Choose two.)

Accepted Answer

Run gcloud run services update-traffic SERVICE_NAME --to-revisions v2=10. To shift 10% of traffic to revision v2, you can use the gcloud run services update-traffic command with the --to-revisions flag. Option A sets v2 to 10% and implicitly assigns the remaining 90% to v1. Option C explicitly sets both v1=90% and v2=10%. Both achieve the desired 10% traffic shift. Option B assigns 100% to the latest revision, not 10%. Option D deploys the new revision without traffic. Option E only lists revisions.

Answer

Run gcloud run services update-traffic SERVICE_NAME --to-latest

Answer

Run gcloud run deploy --image gcr.io/project/v2 --no-traffic

Answer

Run gcloud run revisions list to confirm revision names

Question 8

You want to monitor the uptime of an external HTTP endpoint from multiple locations around the world. Which TWO steps should you take? (Choose two.)

Accepted Answer

Select multiple locations (e.g., us-west1, europe-west1, asia-east1) for the uptime check. Uptime checks in Cloud Monitoring allow you to monitor the availability of external HTTP/HTTPS endpoints. To use them, you must create an uptime check (option D) and select multiple geographic locations from which the check will run (option C). Option A is incorrect because log-based metrics measure response times from your application logs, not endpoint uptime; option B is incorrect because Pub/Sub is a messaging service, not a notification channel for uptime checks; option E is incorrect because VPC flow logs track network traffic within your VPC, not external endpoint monitoring.

Answer

Create a log-based metric for the endpoint response time

Answer

Create a notification channel of type Pub/Sub

Answer

Enable VPC flow logs for the endpoint

Question 9

You need to set up an alert that triggers when the 99th percentile latency of your HTTP(S) load balancer exceeds 5 seconds for 5 minutes. Which THREE resources must you create or configure? (Choose three.)

Accepted Answer

An alerting policy. To alert on latency exceeding a threshold, you must create an alerting policy (B), which requires a notification channel (C) to send alerts and a metric threshold condition (E) that defines when to trigger. An uptime check (A) is for availability monitoring, not latency percentiles. A log-based metric (D) is not needed because latency data is provided by Cloud Monitoring metrics directly.

Answer

An uptime check

Answer

A log-based metric for latency

Question 10

Your BigQuery dataset contains a table with sensitive customer data. You want to allow a data analyst to query the table but prevent them from viewing the data directly. You also need to ensure they cannot export the data. Which TWO IAM roles should you grant the analyst? (Choose two.)

Accepted Answer

roles/bigquery.jobUser. To allow the analyst to query the table without viewing data directly, you should grant the bigquery.jobUser role, which provides permission to run queries (bigquery.jobs.create). To prevent direct viewing, you must not grant bigquery.dataViewer on the table, as that allows direct data access. Instead, create an authorized view that exposes only the necessary columns/rows, and grant bigquery.dataViewer on that view. For export prevention, bigquery.jobUser alone does not allow export; additional roles like storage.objectViewer or bigquery.dataEditor would be required for export, so they are not needed. Thus, the only IAM role needed from the options is roles/bigquery.jobUser.

Answer

roles/bigquery.dataViewer

Answer

roles/bigquery.admin

Answer

roles/storage.objectViewer

Answer

roles/bigquery.dataEditor

Question 11

You need to update a deployment in your GKE cluster from image version 1.0 to 2.0. You have already updated the manifest file. Which THREE kubectl commands should you use in sequence? (Choose three in the correct order.)

Accepted Answer

kubectl set image deployment/myapp myapp-container=gcr.io/myproject/myapp:2.0. To update a deployment in GKE after modifying the manifest file, a standard sequence is: first, apply the new image using `kubectl set image` (option B), which triggers a rollout. Then, monitor the rollout progress with `kubectl rollout status` (option E) to ensure it completes. Finally, verify the new revision using `kubectl rollout history` (option D). Options A and C are not part of this update sequence: A lists pods, and C is for rollback only.

Answer

kubectl get pods -l app=myapp

Answer

kubectl rollout undo deployment/myapp

Question 12

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 13

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 14

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 15

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