Cloud Digital Leader Practice Test 15 — 15 Questions

Question 1

A startup is building a mobile app that needs to store user profiles and preferences with low latency. The data is unstructured and frequently read/written. Which TWO Google Cloud database services are most suitable? (Choose 2)

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

Accepted Answer

Bigtable. Firestore is a NoSQL document database optimised for mobile/web apps with low-latency reads/writes. Bigtable is also NoSQL but designed for high-throughput time-series data. Memorystore is a cache, not a primary database. Cloud SQL is relational. The best options are Firestore for user profiles and preferences (unstructured, low-latency) and Bigtable if the scale is very high, but typically Firestore is the go-to for mobile. However, the question asks for TWO; Bigtable is also NoSQL and can be used for user data but is overkill. Alternatively, Firestore and Memorystore can be combined: Firestore as primary, Memorystore as cache. But Memorystore is a cache, not a database. The question says 'database services'. So likely Firestore and Bigtable are both NoSQL databases. But for user profiles, Firestore is more appropriate. I'll select Firestore and Bigtable as two NoSQL options.

Answer

Memorystore

Answer

Cloud Spanner

Answer

Cloud SQL

Question 2

A data analytics team needs to process streaming data from thousands of IoT devices in real time. They want to ingest the data, process it (e.g., windowed aggregations), and then load it into BigQuery for analysis. Which Google Cloud service should they use for the stream processing step?

Accepted Answer

Cloud Dataflow. Dataflow is a fully managed, serverless service for stream and batch data processing, based on Apache Beam. It can handle real-time streaming data, perform windowed aggregations, and write to BigQuery.

Answer

BigQuery

Answer

Cloud Pub/Sub

Answer

Cloud Dataproc

Question 3

A startup needs to migrate an on-premises web application to the cloud with minimal operational overhead. The application runs on a custom runtime that is difficult to containerize. The team wants to focus only on code, not infrastructure management. Which Google Cloud service is MOST appropriate?

Accepted Answer

App Engine. App Engine is a PaaS offering that fully manages the runtime environment, allowing developers to deploy code without managing servers or containers. Cloud Run requires containerization, Compute Engine is IaaS (more overhead), and GKE requires managing Kubernetes clusters.

Answer

Compute Engine

Answer

Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE)

Answer

Cloud Run

Question 4

Which Google Cloud service provides a fully managed, scalable NoSQL document database suitable for mobile and web applications with real-time data synchronization?

Accepted Answer

Firestore. Firestore is a document database with real-time syncing and offline support. Bigtable is wide-column, Cloud SQL is relational, and Memorystore is a cache.

Answer

Cloud Bigtable

Answer

Cloud SQL

Answer

Memorystore

Question 5

A company wants to assign metadata to resources for cost allocation reporting. They need to categorize resources by environment (production, staging, development) and team (engineering, marketing). They also need to use this metadata in billing exports. Which approach should they take?

Accepted Answer

Use labels.. Labels are key-value pairs that can be applied to resources and are included in billing exports for cost attribution. Tags are used for network firewall rules, not cost allocation.

Answer

Use folder names.

Answer

Use network tags.

Answer

Use organization policy tags.

Question 6

A data scientist wants to train a custom machine learning model using their own data and deploy it for online predictions. They want a unified platform that manages the entire ML lifecycle from data preparation to model serving. Which service should they use?

Accepted Answer

Vertex AI. Vertex AI is Google Cloud's unified ML platform that covers data labeling, training, tuning, evaluation, and deployment (online prediction endpoints). AutoML is part of Vertex AI but focuses on automated model building. Cloud Functions is for serverless code, not ML. AI Platform (unified) is the old name for Vertex AI.

Answer

Cloud Functions

Answer

AutoML

Answer

AI Platform (Unified)

Question 7

A developer wants to deploy a containerized application that can scale down to zero when not in use and charges only for the resources consumed during request processing. Which Google Cloud compute service should they choose?

Accepted Answer

Cloud Run. Cloud Run is a serverless container platform that automatically scales to zero and charges per request, making it ideal for intermittent workloads. Compute Engine and GKE require always-on infrastructure. App Engine Flexible also requires at least one instance running.

Answer

Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE)

Answer

Compute Engine

Answer

App Engine Flexible Environment

Question 8

A company runs a video processing application that triggers a function each time a new video is uploaded to Cloud Storage. The function transcodes the video and stores the result. Which compute service is BEST suited for this event-driven workload?

Accepted Answer

Cloud Functions. Cloud Functions is designed for event-driven triggers from Cloud Storage (e.g., object finalize). It is lightweight and cost-effective. Cloud Run is for containerized HTTP services. Compute Engine and GKE are overkill for simple event-driven tasks.

Answer

Compute Engine

Answer

Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE)

Answer

Cloud Run

Question 9

A healthcare startup is building a HIPAA-compliant application on Google Cloud. They need to encrypt data at rest and manage their own encryption keys. Which service should they use for key management?

Accepted Answer

Cloud Key Management Service (Cloud KMS). Cloud KMS allows customers to manage their own encryption keys, and when used with CMEK, ensures data-at-rest encryption for HIPAA compliance.

Answer

Cloud IAM

Answer

Cloud Data Loss Prevention (DLP)

Answer

Cloud HSM

Question 10

A team is developing a machine learning model using TensorFlow. They want to train the model on a large dataset stored in Cloud Storage, using GPUs, and then deploy the trained model for online predictions with autoscaling. Which GCP service should they use for the entire workflow?

Accepted Answer

Vertex AI. Vertex AI is a unified ML platform that provides training (with GPU support), model management, and deployment for online predictions with autoscaling. Cloud Functions, AI Platform (now part of Vertex AI), and Compute Engine are not unified end-to-end.

Answer

AI Platform (legacy)

Answer

Cloud Functions

Answer

Compute Engine with pre-installed ML frameworks

Question 11

A company wants to receive notifications when its monthly spending exceeds 80% of a $10,000 budget. Which set of steps will achieve this?

Accepted Answer

Set up a budget in the Billing section of Cloud Console, define the amount, and add alert thresholds at 80%. Budgets and alerts can be set up in the Cloud Console to trigger email or Pub/Sub notifications at specified thresholds (e.g., 50%, 80%, 90%).

Answer

Create a budget alert in Cloud Monitoring with a metric threshold of 80%

Answer

Use the Google Cloud Pricing Calculator to set a spending limit

Answer

Configure a Cloud Scheduler job to check billing data in BigQuery and send a notification

Question 12

A company wants to replace its VPN-based remote access with a solution that grants access to internal web applications based on user identity and device context, without requiring a VPN. Which Google Cloud service should they use?

Accepted Answer

Identity-Aware Proxy (IAP). Identity-Aware Proxy (IAP) provides context-aware access to applications without a VPN, verifying user identity and device context. BeyondCorp Enterprise is a framework that includes IAP, but the question asks for the service that directly enforces access based on identity and context.

Answer

Access Transparency

Answer

Cloud Identity

Answer

Cloud VPN

Question 13

A financial institution is deploying a sensitive workload on Compute Engine and needs to meet PCI DSS compliance. The security team wants to ensure that the virtual machines run on dedicated, single-tenant hardware and that no other customer's VMs share the same host. Which Compute Engine feature should they enable?

Accepted Answer

Sole-tenant nodes. Sole-tenant nodes ensure that VMs from that project are the only ones running on the underlying hardware, providing physical isolation and meeting compliance requirements for dedicated infrastructure.

Answer

Confidential VMs

Answer

Preemptible VMs

Answer

Shielded VMs

Question 14

A company wants to set up a hybrid cloud connection between its on-premises data center and Google Cloud VPC with a dedicated, high-bandwidth, low-latency link. Which service should they use?

Accepted Answer

Cloud Interconnect. Cloud Interconnect provides dedicated physical connections between on-premises and Google Cloud. HA VPN is a low-cost alternative but uses the public internet and offers lower bandwidth. Cloud CDN is for content delivery. Cloud NAT is for outbound connectivity.

Answer

Cloud VPN

Answer

Cloud CDN

Answer

Cloud NAT

Question 15

A company wants to implement a zero-trust access model for its internal applications, eliminating the need for a traditional VPN. Employees should be allowed access based on device posture and user identity, not just network location. Which Google Cloud solution should be used?

Accepted Answer

BeyondCorp Enterprise. BeyondCorp Enterprise provides a zero-trust access model that uses identity and context to grant access without a VPN. Identity-Aware Proxy (IAP) is a component that enforces access policies based on identity and context.

Answer

Security Command Center

Answer

Cloud VPN

Answer

Identity-Aware Proxy (IAP)