Google PCA Practice Test 2 — 30 Questions

Question 1

An e-commerce platform uses Cloud SQL for MySQL to store user profiles and order history. The security team wants to ensure that database administrators (DBAs) cannot view plaintext credit card numbers stored in the database. They also want to minimize application changes. What should they do?

Accepted Answer

Use Cloud DLP with de-identification and re-identification transforms on the Cloud SQL database.. Cloud DLP can be used to de-identify sensitive data like credit card numbers at rest in Cloud SQL, using deterministic or reversible transformations (e.g., format-preserving encryption or tokenization) that allow re-identification only by authorized applications. This approach minimizes application changes because DLP can scan and transform the data directly in the database, and the application can use re-identification transforms via the DLP API when needed, without modifying existing queries or schema.

Answer

Implement column-level encryption using Cloud KMS in the application layer.

Answer

Grant DBAs the Cloud SQL Viewer role to restrict access to data.

Answer

Use Cloud SQL Proxy to encrypt connections and limit DBA access.

Question 2

A company wants to ensure that only Compute Engine instances with a specific service account can access a Cloud Storage bucket. Which IAM condition should they use?

Accepted Answer

Condition: 'iam.serviceAccount == "sa@project.iam.gserviceaccount.com"'. Option D is correct because the `iam.serviceAccount` condition attribute in IAM conditions allows you to restrict access based on the service account identity of the caller. When a Compute Engine instance uses a service account, the condition `iam.serviceAccount == "sa@project.iam.gserviceaccount.com"` ensures that only requests authenticated with that specific service account are allowed to access the Cloud Storage bucket. This is the standard IAM condition attribute for matching the service account of the requesting principal.

Answer

Condition: 'request.auth == "serviceAccount:sa@project.iam.gserviceaccount.com"'

Answer

Condition: 'origin.serviceAccount == "sa@project.iam.gserviceaccount.com"'

Answer

Condition: 'resource.serviceAccount == "sa@project.iam.gserviceaccount.com"'

Question 3

A developer ran the command `gcloud compute instances describe instance-1 --zone us-central1-a` and received the above output. They want to create another instance with the same configuration, except with a different external IP. Which action should they take?

Accepted Answer

Create a new instance without specifying a static IP, so it receives an ephemeral IP.. The `gcloud compute instances describe` output shows the instance has an external IP that is ephemeral (not reserved). To create a new instance with the same configuration but a different external IP, the simplest approach is to create a new instance without specifying a static IP, which will automatically assign a new ephemeral IP. This avoids the overhead of reserving and managing a static IP when only a temporary, different address is needed.

Answer

Reserve a new static external IP address and assign it to the new instance.

Answer

Use the same static IP address by releasing and reassigning it.

Answer

None of the above.

Question 4

A startup uses Cloud Functions with a Pub/Sub trigger to process incoming orders. They notice that the function sometimes fails to process messages, and those messages are lost. What is the most likely cause?

Accepted Answer

The Cloud Function is configured with retry on failure set to false.. Option D is correct because when a Cloud Function fails to process a Pub/Sub message and retry on failure is set to false, the message is not redelivered. Pub/Sub relies on the subscriber (the Cloud Function) to acknowledge messages; without retries, a failed execution causes the message to be dropped after the ack deadline expires, leading to message loss.

Answer

The subscription has an ackDeadlineSeconds of 600.

Answer

The Cloud Function has a timeout of 540 seconds.

Answer

The Pub/Sub topic has a retention duration of 10 minutes.

Question 5

Which TWO are best practices when designing a VPC network for a multi-tier application in Google Cloud?

Accepted Answer

Create separate subnets for each application tier.. Option B is correct because creating separate subnets for each application tier (e.g., web, application, database) allows you to apply granular firewall rules and routing policies per tier. This segmentation improves security by isolating traffic between tiers and aligns with Google Cloud's best practices for multi-tier architectures. It also simplifies network troubleshooting and scaling by keeping each tier's IP space distinct.

Answer

Disable VPC Flow Logs to reduce cost.

Answer

Use a single subnet for all tiers to simplify IP management.

Answer

Rely on the default priority of firewall rules to ensure proper ordering.

Question 6

A company uses a Shared VPC hosted in a common project (host project) to centralize network management. A service project team needs to create a Compute Engine instance with a specific static internal IP address from the Shared VPC subnet. What IAM permissions should be granted to the service project's Compute Engine default service account?

Accepted Answer

compute.subnetworks.use and compute.addresses.use on the subnet and static IP.. Option B is correct: To use a specific static internal IP from a Shared VPC, the service account needs compute.subnetworks.use and compute.addresses.use on the subnet or address resource. Option A is missing compute.addresses.use. Option C grants compute.instances.create but not the necessary subnet/address permissions. Option D is too broad and unnecessary.

Answer

compute.networkAdmin on the host project.

Answer

compute.subnetworks.use on the host project subnet.

Answer

compute.instances.create on the service project.

Question 7

A developer needs to grant public read access to all objects in a Cloud Storage bucket named 'my-public-assets'. What is the simplest way to achieve this?

Accepted Answer

Enable uniform bucket-level access and grant storage.objectViewer to AllUsers.. Option C is correct: AllUsers with storage.objectViewer on the bucket grants public read access to all objects. Option A requires setting ACLs per object. Option B is for uniform bucket-level access but that would require an additional step. Option D is wrong; bucket policy only is not sufficient without AllUsers.

Answer

Set a bucket policy that allows allUsers to read objects.

Answer

Grant storage.objectViewer to AllUsers on the bucket without enabling uniform bucket-level access.

Answer

Set an ACL on each object to allow public read.

Question 8

An organization wants to enforce a policy that prohibits the creation of Cloud Storage buckets with uniform bucket-level access disabled. What should they use?

Accepted Answer

Organization policy with a list constraint.. Option C is correct: Organization policies can enforce constraints like constraints/storage.uniformBucketLevelAccess. Option A (IAM) does not prevent bucket creation with specific settings. Option B (Cloud Audit Logs) is for logging. Option D (Cloud Armor) is for security policies at the edge.

Answer

IAM roles with custom permissions to deny bucket creation.

Answer

Cloud Audit Logs to monitor bucket creation.

Answer

Cloud Armor security policies.

Question 9

A company is migrating hundreds of on-premises VMs to Compute Engine. They want to minimize manual effort and downtime. Which service should they use?

Accepted Answer

Migrate for Compute Engine. Migrate for Compute Engine (formerly Velostrata) is the correct choice because it is a fully managed service specifically designed for migrating large-scale VM workloads to Compute Engine with minimal downtime. It uses a streaming migration approach that moves the OS and application data while the source VM continues running, then performs a cutover with near-zero downtime, making it ideal for hundreds of VMs without manual effort.

Answer

Cloud Build

Answer

gcloud compute instances import

Answer

Transfer Appliance

Answer

CloudEndure

Question 10

An administrator creates a GKE cluster with the command above. After deployment, the cluster has 3 nodes, but the node pool autoscaler never scales up even under load. What is the most likely reason?

Accepted Answer

The cluster is zonal, but node locations include multiple zones.. Option C is correct because the node pool autoscaler in GKE cannot scale up a cluster that uses multiple zones in a single zonal cluster. The autoscaler requires that all nodes in the pool be in the same zone to properly manage capacity; when node locations span multiple zones in a zonal cluster, the autoscaler is disabled and will not trigger scaling events, even under load.

Answer

The autoscaler minimum nodes is set to 1 and maximum to 5.

Answer

The disk size of 100 GB is insufficient.

Answer

The machine type e2-medium is too small for the workloads.

Question 11

A company is deploying a web application on Compute Engine behind a global HTTP(S) load balancer. They want to restrict access to only traffic from specific IP ranges. Which load balancer feature should they use?

Accepted Answer

Cloud Armor security policies.. Cloud Armor security policies are the correct choice because they allow you to define IP-based allow/deny rules at the edge of Google's network, directly integrated with the global HTTP(S) load balancer. This provides granular access control based on source IP ranges before traffic reaches your backend instances, which is exactly what the requirement specifies.

Answer

VPC firewall rules.

Answer

Identity-Aware Proxy (IAP).

Answer

Cloud CDN.

Question 12

A company runs a critical application on Compute Engine instances in a managed instance group (MIG) across three zones in us-central1. The application uses a Cloud Spanner database. Recently, the application experienced increased latency and timeouts during peak hours. The operations team noticed that the MIG's CPU utilization is consistently above 80% during peak hours, and the autoscaler is configured to scale based on CPU utilization with a target of 60%. However, the autoscaler is not adding new instances quickly enough, causing performance degradation. The team also observed that new instances take over 5 minutes to become healthy and serve traffic. The health check is a simple TCP check on port 8080. The application startup script downloads large configuration files from Cloud Storage. What should the team do to improve the autoscaling response time and reduce latency?

Accepted Answer

Create a custom Compute Engine image that includes the application and configuration, and use it in the MIG.. Option C is correct because the primary bottleneck is the long instance startup time (over 5 minutes) caused by downloading large configuration files from Cloud Storage at boot. By creating a custom Compute Engine image that bakes the application and configuration into the image, new instances can start serving traffic almost immediately, drastically reducing the time before they become healthy and the autoscaler can consider them in scaling decisions. This directly addresses the root cause of slow autoscaling response, as the autoscaler cannot add instances faster than they become healthy.

Answer

Increase the minimum number of instances in the MIG to handle peak load.

Answer

Reduce the autoscaler target CPU utilization to 40% so it scales earlier.

Answer

Change the health check to HTTP and reduce the initial delay and check intervals.

Question 13

Which THREE of the following are best practices when using Deployment Manager to manage infrastructure? (Choose three.)

Accepted Answer

Use templates to define resources modularly.. Using templates promotes reusability and modularity. Imports allow you to define common resources across deployments. Composite types bundle related resources into a single entity. YAML files are basic, but using Python or Jinja allows dynamic generation. The three best practices are using templates, imports, and composite types.

Answer

Use raw REST API calls in templates.

Answer

Use only YAML configuration files.

Question 14

Your organization has a policy that all Compute Engine instances must have specific labels (env, team, cost-center) applied. You want to enforce this automatically when instances are created. What should you do?

Accepted Answer

Use the Organization Policy service with a custom constraint to require labels on Compute Engine instances.. Option D is correct because Organization Policy Service with a custom constraint allows you to enforce that all Compute Engine instances must have specific labels (env, team, cost-center) at creation time. This is a preventive control that blocks creation of non-compliant instances, unlike reactive or permission-based approaches. Custom constraints use the `compute.googleapis.com/instance` resource type and can require label keys or values using CEL (Common Expression Language) syntax.

Answer

Enable Cloud Audit Logs and set up a metric-based alert to detect instances without labels.

Answer

Create a Cloud Function that listens for instance creation events and adds labels automatically.

Answer

Assign a custom IAM role that includes permission to label instances, and remove the default compute.instances.create permission.

Question 15

A company is migrating a legacy monolithic application to Google Cloud. The application currently runs on a single on-premises server and uses a local MySQL database. The company wants to minimize changes to the application code while improving scalability and reliability. Which migration strategy should the architect recommend?

Accepted Answer

Rehost the application on Compute Engine and use Cloud SQL for MySQL as the database.. Option B is correct because rehosting (lift-and-shift) the monolithic application to Compute Engine with Cloud SQL for MySQL minimizes code changes while improving scalability and reliability. Cloud SQL provides managed MySQL with automated backups, replication, and failover, addressing the need for reliability without requiring application refactoring.

Answer

Refactor the application into microservices and deploy on Google Kubernetes Engine.

Answer

Containerize the application with Docker and run it on Cloud Run.

Answer

Migrate the database to Firestore and rewrite the application to use Firestore APIs.

Question 16

A company wants to enable a new DevOps team to have read-only access to logs in the default Cloud Logging bucket for their project, but prevent them from modifying log views or creating linked datasets in BigQuery. Which two IAM roles should be granted to the team?

Accepted Answer

roles/logging.viewAccessor. The roles/logging.viewAccessor role grants read-only access to log entries in Cloud Logging buckets, including the default bucket, without allowing modifications to log views or linked datasets. The roles/logging.viewer role provides broader read-only access to all Logging resources, including logs, but still prevents modifying log views or creating linked datasets in BigQuery. Together, these two roles satisfy the requirement of read-only log access while explicitly excluding permissions to alter log views or manage BigQuery linked datasets.

Answer

roles/logging.configWriter

Answer

roles/logging.admin

Answer

roles/bigquery.dataViewer

Question 17

An organization is implementing a data loss prevention (DLP) strategy for sensitive data stored in Cloud Storage. They want to automatically detect and redact credit card numbers in CSV files uploaded to a specific bucket. Which TWO Google Cloud services should they combine to achieve this?

Accepted Answer

Cloud DLP. Cloud DLP (option C) is correct because it provides native content inspection and de-identification (redaction) of sensitive data like credit card numbers using built-in infoType detectors. Cloud Functions (option D) is correct because it can be triggered by Cloud Storage events (e.g., finalize/create) to invoke the DLP API on newly uploaded CSV files, enabling serverless, event-driven processing without managing infrastructure.

Answer

Cloud Dataflow

Answer

Cloud Run

Answer

BigQuery

Question 18

A company is using Cloud NAT to allow instances in a private subnet to access the internet for updates. The security team wants to audit outbound connections. Which TWO steps should be taken to enable flow logs for Cloud NAT?

Accepted Answer

Configure a log sink to export Cloud NAT logs to BigQuery. Cloud NAT flow logs provide detailed records of outbound connections and are enabled directly on the Cloud NAT gateway itself. Option B is correct because configuring a log sink to export Cloud NAT logs to BigQuery is a valid step to audit outbound connections, but the primary step to enable logging is to update the existing Cloud NAT gateway to enable flow logs (Option E). Together, these two steps (B and E) allow you to capture and analyze outbound traffic for auditing.

Answer

Enable private Google access on the subnet

Answer

Enable VPC Flow Logs on the subnet

Answer

Create a new Cloud NAT gateway with logging enabled

Question 19

A company has a Cloud SQL for PostgreSQL instance that is experiencing high latency. They suspect a connection pooling issue. Which TWO configurations should be checked? (Choose two.)

Accepted Answer

Cloud SQL Auth Proxy configuration. The Cloud SQL proxy provides secure connections and connection pooling to reduce latency. The max_connections parameter affects how many connections are allowed and can be a bottleneck. Query insights helps but is not a configuration. Private IP vs public IP affects network path but not connection pooling per se.

Answer

Private IP assignment

Answer

Database query insights

Answer

Database version

Question 20

A company is using Cloud Load Balancing to distribute traffic to a managed instance group (MIG) of web servers. The web servers are currently running in us-central1. To improve availability, the company plans to add a second MIG in us-west1. What must be done to ensure traffic is automatically routed to the closest healthy backend?

Accepted Answer

Use a global external HTTP(S) load balancer and add both MIGs as backends.. A global external HTTP(S) load balancer can route traffic to backends in multiple regions and automatically directs requests to the closest healthy backend based on the client's geographic location and backend health. Adding both MIGs as backends to this single anycast IP ensures traffic is distributed to the nearest region without additional DNS-based routing or redirects.

Answer

Use a Network Load Balancer in us-central1 and configure a redirect to the new MIG.

Answer

Use an internal TCP/UDP load balancer in each region and configure DNS-based routing.

Answer

Use an external TCP/UDP Network Load Balancer with the new MIG as an additional backend.