Cloud Digital Leader Google Cloud Products and Services Practice Test 4 — 15 Questions

Question 1

A company is running a stateful web application on Compute Engine with a SQL database. They want to use Cloud Load Balancing to distribute traffic across multiple instances in different zones. The application stores session state locally on each VM. Users report that after being directed to a different instance, their session is lost. What is the most suitable solution to maintain session persistence?

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

Accepted Answer

Enable session affinity (sticky sessions) on the load balancer. Cloud Load Balancing supports session affinity (sticky sessions) based on client IP or HTTP cookie, which directs a user to the same backend instance. Moving session state to a central database (Cloud SQL) or Memorystore also works but changes the application. Enabling HTTP cookies is a client-side solution not reliable. Using a header-based approach is less common.

Answer

Store session state in Cloud SQL and share across instances

Answer

Configure Cloud CDN to cache session data

Answer

Use a global load balancer with HTTP cookies to track sessions

Question 2

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 Google Cloud's fully managed, scalable NoSQL document database designed for mobile and web applications, with built-in real-time synchronization across clients. It supports offline persistence and live updates, making it ideal for apps that need real-time data sync. Firestore is the direct successor to the original Cloud Datastore and is optimized for these use cases.

Answer

Cloud Bigtable

Answer

Cloud SQL

Answer

Memorystore

Question 3

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 Google Cloud's unified machine learning platform that supports the entire ML workflow: data ingestion from Cloud Storage, training with GPUs, model deployment for online predictions, and autoscaling. It integrates with TensorFlow and provides managed services for each stage. AI Platform (legacy) is deprecated and lacks the full unified experience.

Answer

AI Platform (legacy)

Answer

Cloud Functions

Answer

Compute Engine with pre-installed ML frameworks

Question 4

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 a dedicated, private physical connection between an on-premises network and a Google Cloud VPC, offering high bandwidth (10 Gbps or 100 Gbps per link) and low latency compared to public internet paths. It supports Dedicated Interconnect (direct connection at a Google colocation facility) and Partner Interconnect (via a service provider), both designed for enterprise-grade hybrid cloud connectivity. This meets the requirement for a dedicated, high-bandwidth, low-latency link.

Answer

Cloud VPN

Answer

Cloud CDN

Answer

Cloud NAT

Question 5

A company runs a critical application on Compute Engine. They need a backup and disaster recovery strategy that includes automated backups and the ability to restore in a different region. Which TWO services should they use together? (Select 2)

Accepted Answer

Persistent Disk snapshots. Persistent Disk snapshots can be used for automated backups. Cloud Storage can store these snapshots in a different region for DR. Cloud SQL is not relevant if the application runs on Compute Engine. Cloud Run is a compute service, not backup. Dataflow is processing.

Answer

Cloud Run

Answer

Dataflow

Answer

Cloud SQL

Question 6

A developer wants to build a CI/CD pipeline that automatically builds a Docker container from a GitHub repository, stores the image securely, and deploys it to Cloud Run. Which THREE services should they integrate? (Select 3)

Accepted Answer

Cloud Build. Cloud Build (A) is the correct service to define and execute the CI/CD pipeline that pulls the source from GitHub and runs the docker build steps to produce the container image. Artifact Registry (B) is the secure, recommended place to store and manage the resulting Docker images (replacing the deprecated Container Registry), and Cloud Run can natively pull images from it. Cloud Run (D) is the deployment target where the built image is served as a fully managed serverless container, completing the pipeline. Cloud Storage (C) is not appropriate because it stores objects/blobs rather than container images with registry semantics, and Cloud Source Repositories (E) is a Git hosting service that would duplicate GitHub rather than build or deploy anything.

Answer

Cloud Storage

Answer

Cloud Source Repositories

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 fully managed serverless container platform that automatically scales instances down to zero when there is no traffic, and it bills only for CPU/memory consumed during request handling (with per-100ms granularity). This matches the requirement of zero-idle cost and pay-per-request processing exactly. GKE and Compute Engine both require at least one running node/VM, and App Engine Flexible keeps at least one instance running, so none of them can truly scale to zero.

Answer

Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE)

Answer

Compute Engine

Answer

App Engine Flexible Environment

Question 8

A large enterprise is migrating its on-premises data center to Google Cloud. They need a dedicated, low-latency, and highly available connection between their on-premises network and their VPC. Which networking service should they use?

Accepted Answer

Cloud Interconnect. Cloud Interconnect provides dedicated, high-bandwidth, low-latency connections with SLAs. Cloud VPN is over the public internet and may not meet strict latency/availability requirements. Load Balancing and CDN are not for connectivity to on-premises.

Answer

Cloud CDN

Answer

Cloud VPN

Answer

Cloud Load Balancing

Question 9

A data engineering team wants to process continuous streams of real-time events from millions of devices, perform transformations, and load the results into BigQuery for analysis. They need a fully managed, serverless solution. Which service should they use?

Accepted Answer

Cloud Dataflow. Cloud Dataflow is a fully managed, serverless service for both batch and stream processing, built on Apache Beam. It can ingest continuous streams from Pub/Sub, apply transformations, and write results to BigQuery with automatic scaling and no infrastructure management. This matches the requirement for a serverless solution to process real-time events from millions of devices and load them into BigQuery.

Answer

Dataproc

Answer

Cloud Pub/Sub

Answer

Cloud Functions

Question 10

A startup is building a mobile app and needs to store user profiles and preferences. The data is hierarchical and the app requires real-time synchronization across devices. Which Google Cloud database should they use?

Accepted Answer

Firestore. Firestore is a NoSQL document database designed for mobile apps, with real-time sync and offline support. Cloud SQL and Spanner are relational, not ideal for hierarchical data. Bigtable is for time-series/analytics, not mobile app data.

Answer

Cloud Spanner

Answer

Cloud Bigtable

Answer

Cloud SQL

Question 11

An organization needs to apply security policies to protect their web application from DDoS attacks and SQL injection. Which Google Cloud service should they use?

Accepted Answer

Cloud Armor. Cloud Armor is a web application firewall (WAF) that provides DDoS protection and security rules to block threats like SQL injection. Cloud CDN is for content caching. Load Balancing distributes traffic. Cloud NAT is for outbound connectivity.

Answer

Cloud NAT

Answer

Cloud Load Balancing

Answer

Cloud CDN

Question 12

A company wants to store archived data that must be retained for 10 years. They expect to access it less than once a year. Which Cloud Storage class is the MOST cost-effective?

Accepted Answer

Archive. Archive storage is designed for data accessed less than once a year, with the lowest storage cost but higher retrieval fees and a 365-day minimum storage duration. Coldline has a 90-day minimum and higher cost. Nearline and Standard are more expensive and have shorter minimums.

Answer

Standard

Answer

Coldline

Answer

Nearline

Question 13

A team needs to run a machine learning model using custom code in Python with TensorFlow, and they want to train it at scale on GPU hardware without managing infrastructure. Which Google Cloud service is best suited?

Accepted Answer

Vertex AI. Vertex AI is Google Cloud's unified ML platform that supports custom Python code with frameworks like TensorFlow and provides managed training on GPU hardware without infrastructure management. It offers Vertex AI Training with pre-built containers or custom containers, auto-scaling, and integration with GPUs/TPUs. This directly matches the requirement to train at scale on GPUs with custom code.

Answer

Cloud Run

Answer

Compute Engine

Answer

Cloud Functions

Question 14

Which Google Cloud service allows you to run code in response to events (e.g., file upload to Cloud Storage) without provisioning servers?

Accepted Answer

Cloud Functions. Cloud Functions is Google Cloud's serverless Functions-as-a-Service (FaaS) platform. It executes small, single-purpose code snippets in response to events from sources like Cloud Storage object finalization, Pub/Sub messages, or HTTP requests, with no server provisioning or management required. The service automatically scales based on event volume and bills only for execution time, making it the canonical answer for event-driven, serverless compute.

Answer

App Engine

Answer

Compute Engine

Answer

Google Kubernetes Engine

Question 15

A company is migrating a PostgreSQL database to Google Cloud. They want high performance, AI-optimized capabilities, and compatibility with existing PostgreSQL tools. Which service should they choose?

Accepted Answer

AlloyDB. AlloyDB is a PostgreSQL-compatible database optimized for high performance and AI workloads, with built-in ML integration. Cloud SQL for PostgreSQL provides compatibility but lacks AI optimization. Spanner is a different architecture. Bigtable is NoSQL.

Answer

Cloud Spanner

Answer

Cloud SQL for PostgreSQL

Answer

Cloud Bigtable