Google PCA Timed Practice Test 5 — 10 Questions

Question 1

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.

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Identity-Aware Proxy (IAP).

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Cloud CDN.

Question 2

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.

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

Question 3

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 4

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 5

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.

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

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

Question 6

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

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roles/logging.admin

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roles/bigquery.dataViewer

Question 7

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.

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Cloud Dataflow

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Cloud Run

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BigQuery

Question 8

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 9

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

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Database query insights

Answer

Database version

Question 10

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.

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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.