Google ACE Planning and Configuring a Cloud Solution Practice Question
A company is planning to deploy a batch processing workload on Google Cloud. The workload runs for several hours each night, can tolerate interruptions, and must be cost-optimized. The operations team wants to minimize management effort and ensure the workload automatically restarts if a VM is preempted. Which TWO actions should the company take? (Choose two.)
⚠ Common exam trap
The trap here is assuming that committed use discounts are always the cheapest option, when they only pay off for continuous usage and this workload runs just a few hours per night.
Answer choices
Why each option matters
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
✓
Create a managed instance group using Spot VMs as the instance template and configure it to automatically recreate instances.
Spot VMs in a managed instance group deliver the required cost savings for interruptible batch work, and automatic recreation keeps the job running after preemption. Adding Cloud Scheduler for nightly starts and Cloud Storage checkpoints makes restarts efficient, so the workload completes with minimal operational effort.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✓
Create a managed instance group using Spot VMs as the instance template and configure it to automatically recreate instances.
Why this is correct
Spot VMs offer deep discounts for interruptible workloads, and a managed instance group with automatic recreation replaces preempted instances so the batch job can resume. This combination matches the tolerance for interruptions, the cost goal, and the requirement to restart automatically with minimal manual effort.
- ✗
Deploy the workload on sole-tenant nodes to guarantee physical isolation from other customers.
Why it's wrong here
Sole-tenant nodes provide physical isolation for compliance use cases but cost more than standard or Spot VMs and do not help with interruption handling. They increase expense without addressing the cost optimization or automatic restart goals, so they are inappropriate for this batch workload.
- ✗
Configure the workload to run on a single large standard VM with a local SSD for temporary data.
Why it's wrong here
A single VM is a single point of failure and does not provide automatic restart if the instance is stopped or preempted. Local SSD improves temporary storage performance but does not reduce cost or add resiliency, and the scenario explicitly requires handling interruptions without manual intervention.
- ✗
Use standard Compute Engine VMs with committed use discounts for a three-year term.
Why it's wrong here
Committed use discounts reduce cost for predictable, continuous usage, but this workload runs only several hours per night, so the commitment would pay for idle capacity most of the day. Standard VMs also do not address automatic restart of interrupted work, making this a poor fit for the batch scenario.
- ✓
Set up a Cloud Scheduler job that starts the batch process on a schedule and stores checkpoints in Cloud Storage.
Why this is correct
Cloud Scheduler automates the nightly start, removing manual triggering, while checkpoints in Cloud Storage let the job resume from the last completed unit of work after an interruption. This complements the instance group by making restarts efficient and is a standard pattern for interruptible batch processing.
Go deeper
Related to this question
Learn chapter
Cloud Scheduler and Cloud Tasks
Key term
Cloud storage
Cloud storage is a service that lets you save data on remote servers accessed over the internet instead of on your computer's hard drive.
Key term
Managed instance group
A managed instance group is a collection of identical virtual machine instances that are automatically managed as a single unit to ensure high availability and scalability.
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JA
Written and reviewed by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
Last reviewed September 2026 · checked against the official Google Cloud exam blueprint
This ACE practice question is part of Courseiva's free Google Cloud certification practice question bank. Courseiva provides original exam-style practice questions with explanations, topic-based practice, mock exams, readiness tracking, and study analytics to help learners prepare for the ACE exam.