Google PCA Designing and Planning a Cloud Solution Architecture Practice Test 3 — 15 Questions

Question 1

A startup wants to deploy a containerized web application that scales automatically to zero when not in use, and only pays for resources consumed during request processing. Which compute service should they choose?

Accepted Answer

Cloud Run. Cloud Run is the correct choice because it is a fully managed serverless platform that automatically scales your containerized application to zero when there are no incoming requests, and you only pay for the resources (vCPU, memory, and networking) consumed during request processing. This aligns perfectly with the requirement for a containerized web app that scales to zero and uses a pay-per-use model.

Answer

Cloud Functions

Answer

Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE) Standard

Answer

Compute Engine with preemptible VMs

Question 2

A company runs a batch processing workload that can tolerate interruptions. The job runs for 4 hours every night and can be restarted from checkpoints. They want to minimize compute costs. Which Compute Engine machine configuration is MOST cost-effective?

Accepted Answer

Preemptible VMs. Preemptible VMs are up to 80% cheaper than standard VMs and can be terminated at any time, but the workload is checkpointable and runs overnight, so interruptions are manageable. Committed use discounts require a 1-year or 3-year commitment and are not ideal for short daily jobs. Standard VMs are more expensive.

Answer

Standard VMs with sustained use discounts

Answer

Spot VMs with a specific reservation

Answer

Committed use VMs (1-year commitment)

Question 3

A financial services company needs a globally distributed relational database that supports strong consistency across regions, with multi-region writes and sub-10ms latency for most queries. The database must also support SQL and ACID transactions. Which database should they choose?

Accepted Answer

Cloud Spanner. Cloud Spanner is the only Google Cloud database that offers global distribution, strong consistency, multi-region writes, SQL support, and ACID transactions. Cloud SQL is single-region. Bigtable is NoSQL and does not support SQL or ACID. Firestore is NoSQL with limited transactional support.

Answer

Cloud SQL

Answer

Firestore

Answer

Bigtable

Question 4

A developer wants to run a stateless HTTP API that automatically scales based on incoming request traffic. The API is packaged as a Docker container. They want to minimize operational overhead and only pay for resources when the API is handling requests. Which service should they use?

Accepted Answer

Cloud Run. Cloud Run is a fully managed serverless container platform that automatically scales, including scaling to zero, and bills per request. GKE requires cluster management. Compute Engine requires VM management. App Engine Standard does not support custom containers.

Answer

App Engine Standard

Answer

Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE) Autopilot

Answer

Compute Engine with managed instance groups

Question 5

A company is migrating an on-premises Oracle database to Google Cloud. They want to minimize application changes and need a fully managed, PostgreSQL-compatible database with high performance for OLTP workloads. Which service is MOST suitable?

Accepted Answer

AlloyDB. AlloyDB is a fully managed, PostgreSQL-compatible database optimized for high-performance OLTP workloads, designed for migration from Oracle with minimal changes. Cloud SQL for PostgreSQL is also managed but does not offer the same performance optimizations as AlloyDB. Cloud Spanner is global and SQL-compatible but may require application changes. Bigtable is NoSQL.

Answer

Bigtable

Answer

Cloud SQL for PostgreSQL

Answer

Cloud Spanner

Question 6

A media streaming company wants to serve video content globally with low latency. They plan to cache static objects (thumbnails, manifest files) at edge locations, while dynamic API requests are handled by a backend in a single region. Which combination should they use?

Accepted Answer

Cloud CDN with an external HTTP(S) load balancer. Cloud CDN caches static content at Google's edge locations, reducing latency for global users. An external HTTP(S) Load Balancer routes traffic, terminates SSL, and directs dynamic API requests to the backend. Cloud CDN is enabled on the backend bucket or backend service. Internal LB is for internal traffic only. Cloud NAT is for outbound traffic. VPC peering does not cache.

Answer

Cloud CDN with an internal TCP/UDP load balancer

Answer

Cloud Armor with a TCP/SSL proxy load balancer

Answer

VPC peering with Cloud NAT

Question 7

A company runs a critical application on Compute Engine and needs a disaster recovery strategy with a Recovery Time Objective (RTO) of less than 5 minutes and a Recovery Point Objective (RPO) of less than 1 minute. The application state is stored on persistent disks. Which solution meets these requirements?

Accepted Answer

Managed instance group with regional persistent disks across multiple zones. Managed instance groups with multi-zone deployment and regional persistent disks provide synchronous replication across zones, achieving low RPO (seconds) and automatic failover for RTO under 5 minutes. Snapshots have higher RPO. VM images are for static boot disks. Coldline storage is for archiving.

Answer

Scheduled snapshots to multi-regional Cloud Storage bucket

Answer

VM images stored in a different region using Cloud Storage

Answer

Cloud Storage Coldline with lifecycle policies

Question 8

Which Google Cloud service provides a fully managed, serverless data warehouse for petabyte-scale analytics using SQL?

Accepted Answer

BigQuery. BigQuery is Google Cloud's fully managed, serverless data warehouse designed for petabyte-scale analytics using standard SQL. It automatically handles infrastructure scaling, partitioning, and query optimization, allowing users to run fast SQL queries on massive datasets without managing servers or clusters.

Answer

Firestore

Answer

Cloud Spanner

Answer

Cloud SQL

Question 9

A company wants to connect their on-premises network to Google Cloud with a dedicated, high-bandwidth, low-latency connection that has a Service Level Agreement (SLA) of 99.99% uptime. Which connectivity option should they choose?

Accepted Answer

Dedicated Cloud Interconnect. Dedicated Cloud Interconnect provides a direct physical connection with high bandwidth, low latency, and a 99.99% SLA. Partner Interconnect uses a third-party provider and has a lower SLA. HA VPN offers 99.99% SLA but lower bandwidth. Classic VPN has no SLA.

Answer

High Availability VPN (HA VPN)

Answer

Partner Cloud Interconnect

Answer

Classic VPN

Question 10

A data analytics team needs to run complex SQL queries on a large dataset stored in Cloud Storage (CSV files). The queries are ad-hoc and require fast execution. The data is updated daily. Which Google Cloud service should they use to query the data directly in Cloud Storage with minimal setup?

Accepted Answer

BigQuery. BigQuery can query external data sources including Cloud Storage using federated queries, but for ad-hoc SQL on CSV files, BigQuery is the best choice. Cloud SQL is not designed for external data. Dataproc is for Spark/Hadoop. Dataflow is for stream/batch processing.

Answer

Dataproc

Answer

Dataflow

Answer

Cloud SQL

Question 11

An e-commerce company uses Cloud SQL for MySQL for its transactional database. They need to run complex analytical queries on the same data without impacting OLTP performance. The analytical queries should be run on a read replica with minimal lag. Which solution is BEST?

Accepted Answer

Create a Cloud SQL read replica and run analytical queries on it. Creating a Cloud SQL read replica allows you to offload analytical queries to a separate instance that replicates from the primary using MySQL's native asynchronous replication. This isolates the OLTP workload from heavy analytical queries, and with proper configuration (e.g., using a higher machine type and enabling InnoDB buffer pool tuning on the replica), you can achieve minimal replication lag. The read replica supports the same MySQL engine, so complex analytical queries run without schema changes or data movement.

Answer

Use Data Studio directly on Cloud SQL primary instance

Answer

Migrate to Cloud Spanner to handle both workloads

Answer

Export the database to BigQuery and run queries there

Question 12

A company wants to deploy a microservices architecture on Google Cloud. They need a service mesh to manage traffic, security, and observability across services. They also want to run workloads on both GKE and Compute Engine. Which solution should they use?

Accepted Answer

Cloud Service Mesh (Anthos Service Mesh). Anthos Service Mesh (based on Istio) provides traffic management, security, and observability for microservices across GKE, Compute Engine, and on-premises. Cloud Service Mesh is the same. Istio alone is open-source but not fully managed. Cloud Run for Anthos is for serverless. Traffic Director is for VM-based load balancing but not a full service mesh.

Answer

Cloud Run for Anthos

Answer

Istio open-source installation on GKE

Answer

Traffic Director

Question 13

A company is moving a legacy monolithic application to a microservices architecture on Google Cloud. They want to minimize operational overhead and automatically scale each service independently. Which TWO compute services should they consider? (Choose two.)

Accepted Answer

Cloud Run. Cloud Run and GKE Autopilot both offer automatic scaling and reduced operational overhead. Cloud Run is serverless for containers; GKE Autopilot manages the cluster infrastructure. Compute Engine requires manual scaling. Cloud Functions is for functions, not full services. GKE Standard requires node management.

Answer

Compute Engine with managed instance groups

Answer

Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE) Standard

Answer

Cloud Functions

Question 14

A company wants to implement a disaster recovery strategy for a critical application running on Compute Engine with state stored on persistent disks. They need an RTO of less than 15 minutes and an RPO of less than 1 hour. Which TWO steps should they take? (Choose two.)

Accepted Answer

Use regional persistent disks for the application data. Regional persistent disks replicate data synchronously across zones, providing low RPO. A managed instance group with a health check and auto-healing enables fast failover for low RTO. Snapshots have higher RPO. Cloud DNS is for DNS failover, not for compute failover. Global load balancer is for traffic distribution, not stateful failover.

Answer

Set up scheduled snapshots to a multi-regional Cloud Storage bucket

Answer

Use Cloud DNS with a failover policy

Answer

Configure a global HTTP(S) load balancer in front of the application

Question 15

A company needs to store and serve large media files (each up to 5 GB) to users globally. The files are accessed infrequently (once a quarter) but must be available with low latency. Which THREE Cloud Storage classes and features should they consider? (Choose three.)

Accepted Answer

Cloud CDN. Nearline is suitable for data accessed less than once a month. Cloud CDN caches content at edge locations for low latency. Object lifecycle management can transition objects to colder storage automatically. Standard is for frequently accessed data. Coldline is for data accessed less than once a quarter. Archive is for data accessed less than once a year.

Answer

Coldline storage class

Answer

Standard storage class