PCD Practice Test 19 — 15 Questions

Question 1

An application on Cloud Run needs to handle traffic spikes. Which configuration setting should be adjusted?

Accepted Answer

Set min and max instances. Cloud Run automatically scales the number of container instances based on incoming traffic. By setting min and max instances, you control the scaling range: a minimum ensures a baseline of warm instances to absorb sudden spikes, while a maximum caps costs and prevents resource exhaustion. This is the primary lever for handling traffic spikes in a serverless environment.

Answer

Enable HTTP/2

Answer

Increase CPU allocation

Answer

Increase memory

Question 2

A company wants to automate the deployment of a microservice application to Cloud Run using Cloud Build. They want to ensure zero-downtime deployments and traffic migration. Which three features should they utilize? (Choose three.)

Accepted Answer

Cloud Build triggers to build and deploy on code changes.. Cloud Build triggers can be configured to automatically build and deploy a microservice to Cloud Run whenever code changes are pushed to a repository. This enables continuous delivery and ensures that the latest code is deployed without manual intervention, supporting zero-downtime deployments when combined with traffic management features.

Answer

Cloud Run min and max instance settings.

Answer

Cloud Run managed continuous deployment from a repository.

Question 3

A company is using Cloud Functions (2nd gen) to process files uploaded to Cloud Storage. The function needs to access a Cloud SQL (PostgreSQL) database. What is the most secure way to store and provide the database password to the function?

Accepted Answer

Use Secret Manager and access it via the Secret Manager API within the function.. Secret Manager is Google Cloud's purpose-built service for storing, versioning, and accessing secrets with IAM-based access control and audit logging. Accessing it via the Secret Manager API from the function means the password is never persisted in code, environment variables, or storage buckets, and access can be tightly scoped to the function's service account.

Answer

Use Cloud KMS to encrypt the password and store it in environment variables.

Answer

Hardcode the password in the function code.

Answer

Store the password in a Cloud Storage bucket and read it at startup.

Question 4

Which TWO capabilities does Cloud Service Mesh (Istio) provide to help monitor application performance? (Select exactly 2.)

Accepted Answer

Automatic generation of HTTP request metrics (e.g., request count, latency, error rate) per service.. Option C is correct because Cloud Service Mesh (Istio) automatically generates HTTP request metrics such as request count, latency, and error rate per service through its Envoy sidecar proxies, which expose these metrics in Prometheus format without requiring application instrumentation. Option E is correct because Istio's sidecar proxies automatically propagate distributed tracing headers (e.g., B3, W3C Trace Context) and generate spans for requests, enabling tracing without modifying application code. Option A is incorrect because the legacy Cloud Logging agent is a separate logging mechanism, not a Cloud Service Mesh capability for monitoring application performance. Option B is incorrect because Istio already provides built-in Prometheus metrics via Envoy; deploying a custom Prometheus exporter per microservice is not a Cloud Service Mesh feature. Option D is incorrect because Cloud Endpoints API management with key validation is a separate API management product, not a Cloud Service Mesh monitoring capability.

Answer

Legacy Cloud Logging agent integration for container logs.

Answer

Custom Prometheus exporter deployment for each microservice.

Answer

Cloud Endpoints API management with key validation.

Question 5

A company needs to run AlloyDB for PostgreSQL with a read pool that can automatically scale based on load. They also need to run a local instance on-premises for disaster recovery. Which features should they use?

Accepted Answer

Use AlloyDB with auto-scaling read pool and AlloyDB Omni for on-premises. AlloyDB supports auto-scaling read pools that automatically adjust the number of read replicas based on load, meeting the scaling requirement. For on-premises disaster recovery, AlloyDB Omni is the downloadable, containerized version of AlloyDB that runs on-premises, providing a consistent PostgreSQL-compatible DR target. This combination directly addresses both needs.

Answer

Use AlloyDB with read replicas in the same region and Cloud SQL for on-premises

Answer

Use AlloyDB with a single instance and use Bigtable for on-premises

Answer

Use AlloyDB with cross-region replication to another cloud region

Question 6

An engineer is designing a Cloud Spanner schema for a social media application. The Users table and the Posts table have a parent-child relationship. To optimize read performance for fetching all posts of a user, which schema design approach should be used?

Accepted Answer

Use interleaved tables with Users as parent and Posts as child. Interleaved tables store child rows (Posts) with their parent row (User) in the same split, enabling locality and faster joins. Global or local indexes are separate structures.

Answer

Denormalize by storing post data as a repeated field in Users table

Answer

Use a local secondary index on user_id in the Posts table

Answer

Create a global secondary index on user_id in the Posts table

Question 7

A company is performing a lift-and-shift migration of an on-premises Oracle database to Cloud SQL for PostgreSQL using DMS with continuous migration. Which THREE prerequisites must be met before starting the migration job?

Accepted Answer

Create a source connection profile in DMS.. Option A is correct because Database Migration Service requires a source connection profile that stores the connectivity and credentials for the on-premises Oracle database before a migration job can be created. Option B is correct because continuous migration needs a network path between the source and the Cloud SQL destination, typically established via VPC peering, VPN, or Cloud Interconnect, so DMS can reach both endpoints. Option D is correct because Oracle must run in ARCHIVELOG mode to generate the redo/archive logs that DMS uses for ongoing change data capture during continuous migration. Option C is not required because Cloud SQL Auth Proxy is a client-side connector for applications connecting to Cloud SQL, not something installed on the source Oracle server for DMS. Option E is not required because DMS and the Cloud SQL conversion workspace handle schema and data type conversion automatically, so NUMBER columns do not need to be manually converted to NUMERIC beforehand.

Answer

Install Cloud SQL Auth Proxy on the source server.

Answer

Convert all NUMBER columns to NUMERIC manually.

Question 8

Which THREE common issues cause deployment failures on App Engine? (Choose 3.)

Accepted Answer

Using a runtime version that is not available in the app's region.. App Engine requires that the runtime version specified in your app.yaml is available in the region where the application is deployed. If you select a runtime version that has been deprecated or is not yet rolled out to that region, the deployment will fail with an error indicating the runtime is unavailable. This is a common issue when using newer runtime versions that are only available in certain regions.

Answer

Setting the app to scale to 0 instances.

Answer

Creating a resource with backend type set to 'backend' instead of 'frontend'.

Question 9

An application needs a low-latency in-memory cache to reduce database load and improve response times. The cache must support pub/sub messaging and rate limiting. Which GCP service should be used?

Accepted Answer

Memorystore for Redis. Memorystore for Redis is a fully managed in-memory data store that supports sub-millisecond latency, native pub/sub messaging, and atomic operations ideal for rate limiting (e.g., INCR with TTL). It directly matches all three requirements: low-latency caching, pub/sub, and rate limiting.

Answer

Firestore

Answer

Cloud SQL

Answer

Memorystore for Memcached

Question 10

A team deploys a containerized web application on Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE) using a Deployment. They need to expose the application externally via a stable IP address and enable SSL termination. Which resource should they use?

Accepted Answer

Ingress with Google-managed SSL certificate. An Ingress with a Google-managed SSL certificate is the correct choice because it provides a single stable IP address via a global forwarding rule, terminates SSL at the Google Cloud HTTP(S) load balancer, and routes traffic to the GKE Deployment. This approach offloads SSL decryption from the application pods and uses a managed certificate that auto-renews, meeting both the stable IP and SSL termination requirements.

Answer

HorizontalPodAutoscaler

Answer

Service type NodePort

Answer

Service type LoadBalancer

Question 11

Which THREE are valid uses of Cloud Trace? (Choose three.)

Accepted Answer

Identifying latency bottlenecks in a distributed application. Cloud Trace is Google Cloud's distributed tracing service, and option A is correct because it collects latency data across requests and renders it so you can pinpoint latency bottlenecks in a distributed application. Option C is correct because Cloud Trace reconstructs the end-to-end path of a request as it flows through microservices, showing the parent/child span relationships between services. Option D is correct because spans can represent outbound calls, letting you analyze the performance and latency of external API calls made by your application. Option B is not a Cloud Trace use case: CPU usage of a Compute Engine instance is a metric monitored by Cloud Monitoring (via the Ops Agent or the monitoring agent), not tracing. Option E is not valid because Cloud Trace does not export traces to Prometheus; Prometheus is a metrics system, and Cloud Trace data is viewed in the Trace console or exported to Cloud Storage/BigQuery for analysis.

Answer

Monitoring CPU usage of a Compute Engine instance

Answer

Exporting traces to Prometheus for long-term storage

Question 12

The alert is not firing even though error_count metric occasionally spikes above 10. What is the most likely reason?

Accepted Answer

The duration of 300s means the condition must remain >10 for 5 minutes, so brief spikes do not trigger.. The alert condition is configured with a duration of 300 seconds (5 minutes), meaning the error_count metric must remain above 10 for the entire 5-minute window before the alert fires. Brief, transient spikes that exceed 10 but do not persist for the full duration will not trigger the alert, which is the most likely reason the alert is not firing despite occasional spikes.

Answer

The aggregations are incorrect; should use REDUCE_MAX.

Answer

The filter specifies gke_container but the metric might be from other resources.

Answer

The comparison should be COMPARISON_GT_OR_NAN.

Question 13

Which Google Cloud database service is fully serverless and can scale to zero when not in use, making it cost-effective for variable workloads?

Accepted Answer

Firestore. Firestore is Google Cloud's fully managed, serverless NoSQL document database that automatically scales up and down — including to zero — when there is no traffic, so you pay only for what you use. This makes it ideal for variable or unpredictable workloads such as mobile and web apps with sporadic access patterns. Its serverless nature means no instance provisioning or capacity planning is required.

Answer

Cloud SQL

Answer

Memorystore

Answer

Cloud Bigtable

Question 14

An application uses Cloud SQL for read-heavy workloads. To scale reads, which configuration is best?

Accepted Answer

Add read replicas across zones. Read replicas in Cloud SQL allow you to offload read traffic from the primary instance to one or more replica instances, which are kept in sync using asynchronous replication. This configuration directly scales read capacity by distributing SELECT queries across replicas, making it the best choice for read-heavy workloads.

Answer

Use connection pooling

Answer

Enable high availability with standby

Answer

Enable automatic storage increase

Question 15

A Cloud Run service is experiencing intermittent high latency. The team has enabled Cloud Trace. They want to identify the root cause by analyzing traces. What should they look for in the Trace viewer?

Accepted Answer

Spans with high latency and error status. In Cloud Trace, the root cause of intermittent high latency is identified by examining spans—the fundamental units representing work in a distributed system. Spans with high latency directly indicate where time is being spent, and an error status (e.g., HTTP 5xx or gRPC error codes) pinpoints a failure that could be causing retries or blocking, leading to the observed latency. This combination is the most direct signal for root cause analysis in trace data.

Answer

High container CPU usage

Answer

Large number of concurrent requests

Answer

Frequent log entries with 'WARNING'