Cloud Digital Leader Google Cloud Products and Services Practice Test 6 — 15 Questions

Question 1

A company is building a real-time analytics pipeline on Google Cloud. They need to ingest streaming data from IoT devices, process it with low latency, and then store the results for real-time querying. Which TWO services should they use? (Choose TWO.)

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

Accepted Answer

Cloud Pub/Sub. Cloud Pub/Sub (A) is correct because it is Google Cloud's fully managed, globally scalable messaging service designed for ingesting high-volume streaming data from sources such as IoT devices, decoupling producers from consumers with low-latency, at-least-once delivery. Cloud Dataflow (C) is correct because it is a fully managed Apache Beam runner that performs stream and batch processing with low latency, including windowing, aggregations, and exactly-once semantics, making it the right choice to transform the Pub/Sub stream before writing results downstream. Cloud Storage (B) is not appropriate as the primary ingestion or processing layer for real-time streaming, since it is object storage optimized for durable blobs rather than low-latency event streams. Cloud Functions (D) is event-driven and serverless but is intended for lightweight, short-lived functions, not sustained low-latency stream processing pipelines. BigQuery (E) is a powerful analytics warehouse for real-time querying of stored results, but it is a destination/serving layer rather than the ingestion or stream-processing service the scenario requires.

Answer

Cloud Storage

Answer

Cloud Functions

Answer

BigQuery

Question 2

A developer wants to deploy a containerised microservice that can scale to zero when not in use and automatically scale up based on HTTP requests. The microservice is stateless and runs a custom Docker image. Which Google Cloud compute service is BEST suited for this workload?

Accepted Answer

Cloud Run. Cloud Run is a serverless compute platform that runs stateless containers and can scale to zero when idle. It automatically scales based on incoming requests, making it ideal for event-driven microservices. GKE requires a cluster to run even when idle, Compute Engine VMs are always on, and App Engine Standard does not support custom containers.

Answer

Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE)

Answer

Compute Engine with managed instance groups

Answer

App Engine Standard environment

Question 3

An organisation needs to run a batch analytics job every night that processes terabytes of data stored in Cloud Storage. The job is expected to run for 3 hours and can tolerate interruptions. The compute resources should be as cost-effective as possible. Which Compute Engine VM type should be used?

Accepted Answer

Preemptible VMs. Preemptible VMs are significantly cheaper than standard VMs and are ideal for batch jobs that can tolerate interruptions. They can be preempted at any time but can be restarted. Standard VMs are for long-running, fault-intolerant workloads. Sole-tenant nodes are for compliance, not cost savings. Custom machine types allow tailoring resources but do not inherently save cost like preemptible VMs.

Answer

Standard (on-demand) VMs

Answer

Custom machine types

Answer

Sole-tenant nodes

Question 4

A data engineer needs to process a continuous stream of events from a global user base, perform real-time transformations, and write the results to both Cloud Storage and BigQuery. The solution must handle sudden traffic spikes and be fully managed (no server management). Which combination of services should the engineer use?

Accepted Answer

Pub/Sub, Dataflow, Cloud Storage, BigQuery. Pub/Sub ingests the continuous global event stream, Dataflow performs the real-time transformations in a fully managed, autoscaling way, and the pipeline can write results to both Cloud Storage and BigQuery as sinks. This combination meets every requirement: global ingestion, real-time processing, dual output, spike handling via autoscaling, and no server management. Dataflow is the only option that natively supports streaming transformations with exactly-once semantics and writes to multiple sinks.

Answer

Pub/Sub, Cloud Functions, Cloud Storage

Answer

Pub/Sub, Dataflow, Cloud Functions

Answer

Cloud Scheduler, Cloud Functions, BigQuery

Question 5

A company runs a global web application hosted on Compute Engine behind a Cloud Load Balancer. They want to protect against DDoS attacks and filter incoming traffic based on IP reputation and geolocation. Which Google Cloud service should they use?

Accepted Answer

Cloud Armor. Cloud Armor is a web application firewall (WAF) and DDoS protection service that integrates with Cloud Load Balancing. It allows IP allow/deny lists, rate limiting, and predefined rules to block traffic based on geo-location and threat intelligence. VPC firewall rules operate at the network level but cannot inspect application-layer traffic or use IP reputation. Cloud CDN caches content but does not filter traffic. Cloud NAT provides outbound connectivity only.

Answer

Cloud CDN

Answer

Cloud NAT

Answer

VPC firewall rules

Question 6

A startup is building a mobile app backend that requires a scalable NoSQL database with real-time synchronisation across devices. The database should support offline access and automatic conflict resolution. Which Google Cloud database service meets these requirements?

Accepted Answer

Firestore. Firestore is Google Cloud's serverless document NoSQL database with built-in real-time listeners, offline persistence on mobile/web SDKs, and automatic conflict resolution via last-write-wins semantics. These features map directly to the mobile backend requirements of real-time sync, offline access, and conflict handling without custom code. Cloud Spanner, Cloud SQL, and Bigtable do not provide native mobile SDKs with offline sync.

Answer

Cloud Spanner

Answer

Cloud SQL

Answer

Cloud Bigtable

Question 7

A team is using Cloud Build to build container images and push them to Artifact Registry. The build process involves sensitive dependencies that should not be exposed to the internet. The team wants to ensure that all builds execute on a private network without public IP addresses. What should the team configure?

Accepted Answer

Use a private pool in Cloud Build. Cloud Build supports private pools that provide workers in a customer-managed VPC network, allowing builds to run without public IP addresses and access internal resources. Connecting the project to a shared VPC only enables network access but workers still have public IPs unless private pools are used. Using Artifact Registry VPC-SC perimeters helps secure the registry but not the build workers. Cloud NAT provides outbound internet but does not remove public IPs from workers.

Answer

Set up Cloud NAT for the Cloud Build workers

Answer

Configure Artifact Registry with VPC Service Controls

Answer

Connect the Cloud Build service account to a shared VPC

Question 8

A company wants to monitor the CPU and memory utilisation of their Compute Engine instances and set up alerts when utilisation exceeds 80%. Which Google Cloud service should they use?

Accepted Answer

Cloud Monitoring. Cloud Monitoring collects metrics from Compute Engine instances via the Ops Agent (or legacy monitoring agent) and provides alerting policies based on metric thresholds. CPU utilization and memory utilization are standard metrics (compute.googleapis.com/instance/cpu/utilization and memory/utilization) that can be charted and alerted on when exceeding 80%. This is the native GCP service for metric-based monitoring and alerting.

Answer

Cloud Logging

Answer

Cloud Error Reporting

Answer

Cloud Trace

Question 9

An organisation is migrating its on-premises Oracle database to Google Cloud. They need a fully managed, PostgreSQL-compatible database with high performance for transaction processing and built-in AI capabilities for predictive analytics. Which database service should they choose?

Accepted Answer

AlloyDB. AlloyDB is a fully managed PostgreSQL-compatible database that offers high performance (4x faster than standard PostgreSQL) and integrated AI capabilities for vector search and predictive analytics. Cloud SQL for PostgreSQL is also managed but lacks the AI optimisations. Cloud Spanner is globally distributed but not PostgreSQL-compatible. Bare Metal Solution runs Oracle on dedicated hardware, not managed.

Answer

Bare Metal Solution for Oracle

Answer

Cloud SQL for PostgreSQL

Answer

Cloud Spanner

Question 10

A company runs a stateful web application on Compute Engine. They need to ensure that persistent data is retained if an instance fails, and that traffic is automatically distributed across healthy instances. Which TWO Google Cloud services should they use? (Choose 2)

Accepted Answer

Persistent Disk. Persistent Disk (B) is correct because it provides durable, network-attached block storage that persists independently of the Compute Engine instance lifecycle, so data survives an instance failure and can be reattached to a replacement VM. Cloud Load Balancing (C) is correct because it automatically distributes incoming traffic across healthy backend instances using health checks, removing unhealthy instances from rotation. Cloud DNS (A) only resolves domain names to IP addresses and does not provide persistence or health-based traffic distribution. Cloud CDN (D) caches HTTP(S) content at edge locations to reduce latency, not to persist application data or balance traffic. Cloud NAT (E) provides outbound internet access for private instances and does not address storage durability or load distribution.

Answer

Cloud DNS

Answer

Cloud CDN

Answer

Cloud NAT

Question 11

A company wants to implement a data pipeline that ingests streaming events from a global user base, processes them in real-time to detect anomalies, and stores the results in a database for low-latency querying. The solution must be fully managed. Which THREE services should they use? (Choose 3)

Accepted Answer

Dataflow. Option D (Pub/Sub) is correct because it is a fully managed, globally scalable messaging service designed to ingest high-volume streaming events from a worldwide user base and reliably deliver them to downstream processing systems. Option A (Dataflow) is correct because it is a fully managed, serverless stream and batch processing service that can consume Pub/Sub messages and perform real-time anomaly detection using Apache Beam pipelines. Option C (Cloud Bigtable) is correct because it is a fully managed, low-latency NoSQL database that scales horizontally and is well suited for storing and querying the pipeline's results with millisecond latency. Option B (Cloud Storage) is not appropriate as the primary sink for low-latency querying, since it is object storage optimized for large blobs rather than fast row-level reads. Option E (Cloud Functions) is not suitable as the core stream-processing engine here, because it is an event-driven serverless function service with execution time and concurrency limits, not a managed pipeline for continuous, high-throughput stream analytics.

Answer

Cloud Storage

Answer

Cloud Functions

Question 12

A startup wants to deploy a containerized web application that can scale to zero during periods of no traffic, and they want to minimize operational overhead. Which Google Cloud compute service is the BEST fit?

Accepted Answer

Cloud Run. Cloud Run is a serverless container platform that automatically scales your containers up and down, including scaling to zero when there is no traffic. It abstracts away infrastructure management, making it ideal for this use case.

Answer

App Engine Flexible Environment

Answer

Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE)

Answer

Compute Engine with managed instance groups

Question 13

A company runs a batch processing workload every night that can tolerate interruptions. The workload runs on Compute Engine VMs and takes 2 hours to complete. They want to reduce costs. Which VM pricing model should they use?

Accepted Answer

Preemptible VMs. Preemptible VMs offer significant cost savings (up to 80% discount) but can be terminated at any time. Since the workload is batch and can tolerate interruptions, this is the most cost-effective choice.

Answer

Committed use discounts

Answer

Sole-tenant nodes

Answer

Sustained use discounts

Question 14

An engineer needs to deploy a containerized application on Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE) and ensure that each pod gets a static IP address that persists across rescheduling. Which networking approach should they use?

Accepted Answer

Use a VPC-native cluster and assign a static internal IP using the `networking.gke.io/static-ip` annotation.. GKE supports static IP addresses for pods using VPC-native clusters and alias IP ranges. By reserving a static internal IP address and assigning it to the pod via a Kubernetes annotation, the IP persists even if the pod is rescheduled.

Answer

Use a load balancer service of type LoadBalancer.

Answer

Use a DaemonSet to ensure one pod per node.

Answer

Use a StatefulSet with a headless service.

Question 15

A data analyst needs to run ad-hoc SQL queries on a large dataset stored in Cloud Storage. The data is in CSV format and does not require real-time results. Which Google Cloud service should they use?

Accepted Answer

BigQuery. BigQuery supports external data sources; you can create an external table pointing to CSV files in Cloud Storage and run SQL queries without loading the data. This is ideal for ad-hoc analysis on existing data.

Answer

Dataflow

Answer

Cloud SQL

Answer

Cloud Dataproc