PCD Deploying applications Practice Test 3 — 15 Questions

Question 1

A developer wants to automatically deploy a new version of an application to App Engine Standard every time code is pushed to the main branch of a Cloud Source Repositories repository. Which service should be used?

Accepted Answer

Cloud Build. Cloud Build is the correct service because it is a fully managed CI/CD platform that integrates natively with Cloud Source Repositories and App Engine Standard. You can configure a Cloud Build trigger to automatically build and deploy your application whenever code is pushed to the main branch, using a cloudbuild.yaml file that specifies the build steps and the `gcloud app deploy` command.

Answer

Cloud Run

Answer

Cloud Scheduler

Answer

Cloud Deploy

Question 2

A company has a multi-region deployment on GKE and needs to route traffic to the closest regional cluster based on user location. They want to minimize latency. Which approach should they use?

Accepted Answer

Use a global external HTTP(S) Load Balancer with backend services pointing to NEGs in each region.. A global external HTTP(S) Load Balancer uses Anycast IP addresses and is backed by backend services that reference Network Endpoint Groups (NEGs) in each regional GKE cluster. This allows the load balancer to direct traffic to the closest healthy backend based on the user's geographic location and the load balancer's proximity algorithm, minimizing latency without requiring DNS-based routing.

Answer

Create separate internal load balancers in each region and use Cloud DNS geo-routing.

Answer

Configure an external TCP/UDP Network Load Balancer in each region and use Cloud DNS geo-routing.

Answer

Deploy a single regional cluster and use Cloud CDN to cache content globally.

Question 3

A developer is deploying a microservice on GKE that needs to be accessible only from within the same VPC network. The microservice must have a stable, internal IP address that does not change when pods are updated. Which options should be used?

Accepted Answer

Use a Service of type LoadBalancer with the annotation 'cloud.google.com/load-balancer-type: Internal'.. Option C is correct because deploying a Service of type LoadBalancer with the annotation 'cloud.google.com/load-balancer-type: Internal' creates an internal TCP/UDP load balancer within the VPC network. This provides a stable, internal IP address that persists across pod updates, as the load balancer's IP is independent of the underlying pods and is managed by Google Cloud's networking layer.

Answer

Use a Service of type NodePort with a static reservation.

Answer

Use a Service of type ClusterIP with a static IP.

Answer

Use a Service of type ExternalName pointing to the pods' internal IPs.

Question 4

Which TWO strategies can be used to reduce cold start latency in Cloud Run? (Choose 2)

Accepted Answer

Set a minimum number of instances (min-instances) to keep instances warm.. Option C is correct because setting a minimum number of instances (min-instances) ensures that a specified number of container instances are always running and ready to serve requests, eliminating the cold start latency that occurs when an instance must be started from scratch. This pre-warming strategy directly reduces the time users wait for the first request to be processed.

Answer

Increase the maximum number of concurrent requests per instance.

Answer

Deploy the Cloud Run service in a region closer to the users.

Answer

Use a VPC connector to access resources in a VPC network.

Question 5

Which THREE are valid methods for authenticating a user or service when deploying a Cloud Function via the Google Cloud SDK? (Choose 3)

Accepted Answer

Using a user account with 'gcloud auth login'. Option B is correct because 'gcloud auth login' authenticates a user account via OAuth 2.0, which is a valid method for deploying Cloud Functions. The Google Cloud SDK uses the user's credentials to authorize API calls, including deployments, making this a standard authentication approach for interactive or user-driven workflows.

Answer

Using an API key

Answer

Using an OAuth 2.0 client ID

Question 6

Which TWO statements about Cloud Run for Anthos are correct? (Choose 2)

Accepted Answer

Cloud Run for Anthos allows users to autoscale their containerized applications without worrying about underlying GKE nodes.. Option A is correct because Cloud Run for Anthos leverages the Knative Serving autoscaler to automatically scale container instances up or down based on incoming request traffic, including scaling to zero when idle. This autoscaling operates at the pod level within the GKE cluster, abstracting away the underlying node management from the user.

Answer

Cloud Run for Anthos is a multi-region service by default.

Answer

Cloud Run for Anthos supports only HTTP requests, not gRPC.

Answer

Cloud Run for Anthos requires you to bring your own load balancer.

Question 7

A developer runs the command above and receives the error. The developer has just been granted the 'roles/cloudbuild.builds.editor' role on the project. What is the most likely reason for the permission error?

Accepted Answer

The Cloud Build API is not enabled for the project.. The error occurs because the Cloud Build API has not been enabled for the project. Even with the 'roles/cloudbuild.builds.editor' IAM role, the Cloud Build service itself must be explicitly enabled via the Google Cloud Console or using the `gcloud services enable cloudbuild.googleapis.com` command. Without enabling the API, any attempt to run a build will fail with a permission error, as the service is not available to process the request.

Answer

The project ID 'my-project' does not exist or the developer typed it incorrectly.

Answer

The container registry (gcr.io) is incorrect; should use us.gcr.io.

Answer

The developer is using the wrong region; Cloud Build must be enabled per region.

Question 8

A developer deployed the Kubernetes Deployment shown. The application takes about 45 seconds to fully initialize and respond on the /healthz endpoint. What problem will occur with this configuration?

Accepted Answer

The liveness probe will start too early and cause the pod to be restarted before it becomes ready.. The readiness probe starts after 5 seconds and checks every 10 seconds; if the app is not ready until 45 seconds, the first readiness check at 5s will fail, then at 15s, 25s, 35s, 45s (assuming first check at 5s, then 15,25,35,45). At 45s the check succeeds, but before that the pod is not ready and not receiving traffic. However, the liveness probe starts at 30s; at 30s the first liveness probe will fail (because app not ready yet), and after 3 consecutive failures (at 30,60,90) the kubelet will restart the pod, causing a crash loop. The correct answer is that the liveness probe will cause the pod to restart before it becomes ready.

Answer

The readiness probe will never succeed, and the pod will be removed from service.

Answer

The deployment will not create any pods because of a syntax error.

Answer

The pod will be marked ready immediately because the readiness probe uses the same endpoint as liveness.

Question 9

A developer runs the command above. What is the effect of the --promote flag in this deployment?

Accepted Answer

It causes the new version (v2) to receive 100% of traffic after deployment.. The --promote flag causes the newly deployed version to receive all traffic immediately. Without it, the version is deployed but does not receive traffic until manually migrated.

Answer

It creates a new default service version with split traffic.

Answer

It promotes the previous version to receive traffic.

Answer

It enables automatic scaling for the new version.

Question 10

You deployed a microservice on Cloud Run. Users report intermittent 503 errors. The service uses Cloud SQL with connection pooling. What is the most likely cause?

Accepted Answer

The connection pool is drained due to CPU throttling on Cloud Run.. When Cloud Run CPU throttling occurs (e.g., during cold starts or when the instance is processing requests beyond its allocated CPU), the connection pool can become drained because existing connections are held open while new requests cannot be processed. This leads to intermittent 503 errors as the service cannot establish new database connections or respond to incoming requests in time. Connection pooling does not protect against CPU throttling; it only manages database connections efficiently.

Answer

The service is not using a VPC connector for Cloud SQL access.

Answer

The Cloud SQL auth proxy is not configured.

Answer

The Cloud Run service name is not resolvable via Cloud DNS.

Question 11

A company is migrating a monolithic Java application to Cloud Run. The application takes 10 minutes to start. What is the best deployment approach?

Accepted Answer

Optimize the Java application to start within 10 minutes and use startup CPU boost.. Option C is correct because Cloud Run allows a maximum container startup time of 10 minutes (600 seconds) by default, and the startup CPU boost feature temporarily allocates additional CPU during startup to accelerate initialization. By optimizing the application to start within this limit and enabling startup CPU boost, the company can directly address the cold start issue without changing the deployment platform or architecture.

Answer

Migrate to App Engine Flexible Environment.

Answer

Use a custom runtime with a cold start optimization.

Answer

Increase the memory limit to 4 GB.

Question 12

You are deploying a stateful application to GKE. The deployment fails with an error: 'pods failed to fit in any node due to insufficient CPU'. The cluster has 3 nodes with 4 vCPUs each. The deployment requests 2 vCPUs per pod with 5 replicas. What is the most likely issue?

Accepted Answer

Other workloads or system components are consuming CPU resources.. Option D is correct because the total requested CPU (10 vCPUs) exceeds cluster capacity (12 vCPUs), but there might be other pods or system reservations. Option A is wrong because resources are specified. Option B is wrong because taints are not mentioned. Option C is wrong because cluster autoscaler is not failing to scale, the error indicates insufficient capacity.

Answer

The cluster autoscaler is not enabled.

Answer

The deployment does not specify resource limits.

Answer

The nodes have taints that prevent pod scheduling.

Question 13

You need to deploy a critical update to a production service on GKE with zero downtime. Which deployment strategy should you use?

Accepted Answer

Blue/green deployment using a Kubernetes Service and label selector. Option B is correct because blue/green deployment ensures all new pods are ready before switching traffic. Option A is wrong because rolling update can cause partial downtime. Option C is wrong because recreate causes downtime. Option D is wrong because canary is incremental but not zero-downtime guarantee.

Answer

Recreate strategy

Answer

Canary deployment with 10% traffic

Answer

Rolling update with maxSurge=25%, maxUnavailable=25%

Question 14

You are setting up Cloud Build to automatically deploy a container to Cloud Run when code is pushed to the main branch of a GitHub repository. What is the minimal configuration required?

Accepted Answer

Create a Cloud Build trigger connected to GitHub, and include a cloudbuild.yaml with steps to build and deploy.. Option A is correct because a Cloud Build trigger connected to GitHub, and a cloudbuild.yaml that builds and deploys to Cloud Run is the minimal. Option B is wrong because Artifact Registry is recommended but not required. Option C is wrong because a separate build configuration file is needed. Option D is wrong because GitHub Actions is separate.

Answer

Set up GitHub Actions to push images to Container Registry and then use Cloud Run.

Answer

Create a Cloud Build trigger without a build config file, using the inline builder.

Answer

Use Artifact Registry to store images and then manually trigger deployment.

Question 15

Your Cloud Run service experiences high latency during traffic spikes. You need to reduce p95 latency without over-provisioning. Which action should you take?

Accepted Answer

Set min-instances to at least 5 for consistent baseline capacity.. Setting min-instances to at least 5 ensures that a baseline number of container instances are always warm and ready to handle incoming requests. This eliminates cold starts and reduces latency during traffic spikes because new requests can be immediately served by pre-warmed instances, rather than waiting for new containers to spin up. This approach directly reduces p95 latency without over-provisioning, as you only pay for the baseline instances when they are idle.

Answer

Set max-instances to a low number to ensure consistent resources.

Answer

Reduce the max-concurrency per container to 1.

Answer

Disable CPU throttling to always allocate CPU.