Google ACE Planning and Configuring a Cloud Solution Practice Test 1 — 15 Questions

Question 1

A company plans to run a stateful application on Compute Engine that requires high random I/O performance and the ability to resize the persistent disk without downtime. The application is running on a Linux VM. Which persistent disk type and configuration should the engineer choose?

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

Accepted Answer

Extreme persistent disk (pd-extreme). Extreme persistent disk (pd-extreme) is designed for high-performance, stateful workloads that require high random I/O and the ability to resize without downtime. It supports up to 120,000 read/write IOPS and can be resized while attached to a running VM, making it the correct choice for a stateful application needing high random I/O and online resizing. Balanced and SSD persistent disks offer lower IOPS ceilings and do not support the same level of performance scaling.

Answer

Balanced persistent disk (pd-balanced)

Answer

SSD persistent disk (pd-ssd)

Answer

Standard persistent disk (pd-standard)

Question 2

A company uses Cloud SQL for MySQL to host a database. The database must be accessible from a Compute Engine VM in the same region but in a different VPC network (VPC-A). The company does not want to use public IP addresses or VPN. What should the engineer do to enable connectivity?

Accepted Answer

Set up VPC Network Peering between VPC-A and the VPC where Cloud SQL is deployed, and configure Cloud SQL with a private IP. Cloud SQL supports private IP connectivity through the Cloud SQL instance's own VPC, and VPC Network Peering allows cross-VPC communication using internal RFC 1918 addresses without public IPs or VPN. By peering VPC-A with the VPC hosting the Cloud SQL private IP, the Compute Engine VM can reach the database over the internal network. This satisfies the no-public-IP and no-VPN constraints.

Answer

Export the Cloud SQL instance as a dump and recreate it in VPC-A

Answer

Configure the Cloud SQL instance with a public IP and allow the VM's IP in authorized networks

Answer

Use Cloud VPN to connect VPC-A to the VPC where Cloud SQL is deployed

Question 3

A company runs a batch analytics workload on Compute Engine that runs for 3 hours every night. The workload is fault-tolerant and can be disrupted. Which pricing model should the engineer use to minimize cost?

Accepted Answer

Spot VMs. Spot VMs are significantly cheaper than regular VMs and can be terminated at any time, suitable for fault-tolerant batch workloads. They are ideal for short-lived, interruptible jobs.

Answer

Committed use discounts

Answer

On-demand VMs

Answer

Sustained use discounts

Question 4

A company needs to run a MongoDB database on Compute Engine. The database requires high-throughput, low-latency storage that can survive VM failures. Which disk type and configuration is most appropriate?

Accepted Answer

SSD persistent disks with snapshots. SSD persistent disks provide high-throughput, low-latency performance and are replicated across zones, so they survive VM failures and can be snapshotted for backup. This makes them the correct balance for a MongoDB workload needing durability and performance without the cost or complexity of Extreme PDs. Snapshots add point-in-time recovery, which is essential for a database.

Answer

Standard persistent disks with snapshots

Answer

Extreme persistent disks with snapshots

Answer

Local SSDs

Question 5

A company wants to use Cloud Functions to process events from Cloud Storage when new objects are uploaded. They need the function to run in a specific VPC network for tight security. Which Cloud Functions generation supports VPC connectivity?

Accepted Answer

Cloud Functions (2nd gen) with VPC connector. Cloud Functions (2nd gen) is built on Cloud Run and Eventarc, and it supports direct VPC egress as well as Serverless VPC Access connectors to route traffic into a specified VPC network. This allows the function to reach private resources like Compute Engine VMs, Memorystore, or internal load balancers without exposing them to the public internet. 1st gen functions can also use Serverless VPC Access connectors, but the question specifically frames the requirement around the generation that supports VPC connectivity in the modern architecture, and 2nd gen is the generation that provides the broader, more integrated VPC networking model including direct VPC egress.

Answer

Cloud Functions (1st gen) with VPC connector

Answer

Cloud Functions (2nd gen) with Cloud VPN

Answer

Cloud Functions (1st gen) with Cloud NAT

Question 6

A company runs a critical application on Compute Engine that requires static IP addresses and must be highly available across zones. The application uses a stateful backend. Which TWO steps should the engineer take to meet these requirements? (Choose 2)

Accepted Answer

Configure an external TCP/UDP load balancer with a static IP address. Option A is correct because an external TCP/UDP (network) load balancer provides a single, stable static IP address that clients can use, and it can distribute traffic across backend instances in multiple zones, which is essential for high availability of a stateful application. Option C is correct because a managed instance group with multiple zones enabled spreads instances across zones, so the application remains available even if one zone fails, and it supports the stateful backend through features like stateful MIGs that preserve instance names, disks, and metadata. Option B is not appropriate because assigning each VM its own static external IP does not provide a single highly available endpoint and complicates failover for a stateful backend. Option D is not appropriate because Cloud DNS geo-routing only directs DNS queries based on location and does not itself provide static IPs or zone-level failover for the application. Option E is not appropriate because a single-zone managed instance group with a snapshot schedule does not provide cross-zone high availability and snapshots alone do not meet the static IP and HA requirements.

Answer

Assign each VM a static external IP address

Answer

Use Cloud DNS with geo-routing

Answer

Use a single-zone managed instance group with a snapshot schedule

Question 7

A company is using Cloud Functions (2nd gen) to process high-volume events from Pub/Sub. The function needs to write results to a Cloud Storage bucket. The security team requires that the function uses a service account with the least privilege. Which THREE roles should the engineer assign to the function's service account? (Choose 3)

Accepted Answer

roles/pubsub.subscriber. For a Cloud Function (2nd gen) processing Pub/Sub events and writing to Cloud Storage, the function's runtime service account requires:
1.  'roles/pubsub.subscriber' on the Pub/Sub subscription to receive and acknowledge messages.
2.  'roles/storage.objectCreator' on the Cloud Storage bucket to write results.

The 'roles/cloudfunctions.invoker' role is for the entity that *triggers* the function, not for the function's own service account. For event-driven functions, the Eventarc service account (which mediates 2nd gen triggers) needs 'roles/run.invoker' (which is included in 'cloudfunctions.invoker') on the Cloud Run service backing the function. The function's service account does not invoke itself. Therefore, 'roles/cloudfunctions.invoker' should not be assigned to the function's service account. The question asks for three roles, but only two are clearly applicable to the function's service account based on the problem description and least privilege principles.

Answer

roles/cloudfunctions.invoker

Answer

roles/iam.serviceAccountUser

Answer

roles/pubsub.publisher

Question 8

A company wants to analyze terabytes of structured data using SQL queries. The data is stored in CSV files in Cloud Storage. Which TWO Google Cloud services can be used together to query the data directly without loading it into a database? (Choose 2)

Accepted Answer

BigQuery. BigQuery (A) is correct because it can run standard SQL directly against external data sources, including CSV files in Cloud Storage, by defining an external table or using federated queries, so the terabytes of structured data never need to be loaded into BigQuery's managed storage. Cloud Storage (E) is correct because it is the service that holds the CSV files and acts as the external data source that BigQuery queries in place, making the combination of BigQuery plus Cloud Storage the intended serverless, no-load solution. Cloud SQL (B) is not appropriate because it is a managed relational database (MySQL, PostgreSQL, SQL Server) that requires data to be imported into its own instance before SQL queries can run, which contradicts the 'without loading it into a database' requirement. Dataproc (C) is a managed Hadoop/Spark service that would require running a cluster and typically processing or loading data rather than simply querying CSV files in place with SQL. Dataflow (D) is a managed Apache Beam pipeline service for batch and stream data processing, not a direct SQL query engine over Cloud Storage CSV files.

Answer

Cloud SQL

Answer

Dataproc

Answer

Dataflow

Question 9

A developer needs to creare a Cloud Storage bucket with the storage class that automatically moves objects to a lower-cost storage class after 30 days. Which storage class should be used?

Accepted Answer

Autoclass. Autoclass is a feature that automatically transitions objects to appropriate storage classes based on access patterns. The other options (Standard, Nearline, Coldline) are actual storage classes but require manual lifecycle rules to achieve automatic transitions. While Autoclass is not a 'storage class', it is the correct mechanism among the options to fulfill the requirement of automatic object movement to lower-cost storage after 30 days.

Answer

Coldline

Answer

Standard

Answer

Nearline

Question 10

A company wants to migrate a monolithic application to run on Google Cloud. The application consists of multiple services that communicate via REST APIs. The company wants to use managed services and minimize operational overhead. Which two compute services should they consider? (Choose two.)

Accepted Answer

App Engine. App Engine and Cloud Run are fully managed, serverless (or highly abstracted PaaS), and designed for hosting web applications and APIs, making them excellent choices for migrating a monolithic application into multiple REST API services with minimal operational overhead. Cloud Functions are typically best for event-driven, fine-grained microservices, while GKE and Compute Engine require significantly more operational management.

Answer

Cloud Functions

Answer

Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE)

Answer

Compute Engine

Question 11

A company has a Compute Engine VM instance that needs to access a Cloud Storage bucket. The VM uses a service account with the Storage Object Admin role. However, the VM is unable to upload objects. Which two possible causes should be investigated? (Choose two.)

Accepted Answer

The VM's service account does not have the required IAM permission on the bucket. The service account must have the required IAM permission on the bucket (Storage Object Admin grants this at the project level, but bucket-level IAM can override). However, the question asks for two possible causes. The most common causes are that the service account lacks the necessary IAM permission on the bucket (A) or that the VM's access scopes are not configured to allow Cloud Storage API access (D). Option C is essentially the same as A from the bucket side and redundant; if the service account has the role at the project level, the bucket's IAM policy is not the issue unless an explicit deny exists. Option B is incorrect because firewall rules do not block API calls to Cloud Storage. Option E is incorrect because Cloud Storage is global and region mismatch does not affect access.

Answer

A firewall rule is blocking outbound HTTPS traffic

Answer

The bucket's IAM policy does not include the service account

Answer

The VM is not in the same region as the bucket

Question 12

A company wants to run a containerized application on Google Cloud with minimal operational overhead. The application is stateless and can tolerate cold starts. Which three compute services should they consider? (Choose three.)

Accepted Answer

GKE Autopilot. GKE Autopilot (A) is correct because it is a fully managed Kubernetes mode where Google provisions and manages the nodes, scaling, and control plane, so the team runs containers with minimal operational overhead while still getting Kubernetes orchestration. Cloud Functions (C) is correct because it is a serverless, event-driven compute service that runs code without managing any infrastructure, and its tolerance for cold starts fits the stateless, cold-start-tolerant requirement. Cloud Run (E) is correct because it is a fully managed serverless platform for running stateless containers that scales automatically (including to zero) and abstracts away all infrastructure management. Compute Engine (B) is not appropriate because it is raw IaaS VMs, requiring the team to patch, scale, and manage the OS and runtime themselves, which is high operational overhead. GKE Standard (D) is not appropriate because, although it runs containers, the team must manage node pools, upgrades, and cluster capacity, adding operational burden compared to Autopilot.

Answer

Compute Engine

Answer

GKE Standard

Question 13

A company needs to store petabytes of time-series IoT sensor data and query it with single-digit millisecond latency at millions of reads per second. The data has a simple key-value structure with timestamps. Which Google Cloud database is MOST appropriate?

Accepted Answer

Cloud Bigtable. Cloud Bigtable is designed for exactly this use case — petabyte-scale, low-latency (single-digit ms), high-throughput NoSQL storage for time-series, IoT, and financial data. It scales horizontally by adding nodes. BigQuery is optimised for analytics (seconds-to-minutes latency) and not for operational reads. Cloud Spanner is a globally distributed relational database with strong consistency, which introduces overhead making it less optimal than Bigtable for pure high-throughput, low-latency key-value reads of time-series data at this scale. Firestore is a document database suitable for application backends, but it is not designed for petabyte-scale time-series data with millions of reads per second.

Answer

BigQuery

Answer

Cloud Spanner

Answer

Firestore

Question 14

A company runs a containerized web application on Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE). The application experiences unpredictable traffic spikes. The team wants to minimize costs by scaling down to zero when idle, but also needs to handle burst traffic quickly. Which GKE mode should they choose?

Accepted Answer

GKE Autopilot. GKE Autopilot is a fully managed GKE mode that handles burst traffic quickly through rapid pod scaling and node provisioning. While it does not scale to zero, it is the best GKE mode for minimizing management and handling traffic spikes. Cloud Run is not a GKE mode, so it is not the correct answer for this question. GKE Standard with node auto-provisioning requires manual configuration and does not scale as quickly, and Compute Engine with managed instance groups is not a GKE mode.

Answer

Cloud Run

Answer

Compute Engine with managed instance groups and autoscaling

Answer

GKE Standard with node auto-provisioning

Question 15

An organization wants to migrate its on-premises MySQL database to Google Cloud. The database is 2 TB and used by a critical application with read replicas for reporting. The team needs minimal downtime and the ability to fail back if needed. Which migration approach should they use?

Accepted Answer

Use Database Migration Service (DMS) to migrate to Cloud SQL. Database Migration Service (DMS) supports continuous replication from MySQL to Cloud SQL with minimal downtime, and it preserves the ability to fail back by keeping the source operational until cutover. It handles schema conversion, initial full dump, and ongoing change data capture (CDC) automatically.

Answer

Lift and shift MySQL on Compute Engine and set up replication manually

Answer

Export the database to a Cloud Storage bucket and import into Cloud SQL

Answer

Stream data to BigQuery using Dataflow