Google ACE Planning and Configuring a Cloud Solution Practice Question
A company runs a global web application with a Cloud SQL (MySQL) database in the us-east1 region. To improve read performance for users in Europe, they want to offload read traffic to a replica in europe-west1. The replica must be kept in sync with the primary within seconds. Which Cloud SQL configuration should be used?
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 cross-region read replica in europe-west1
Cross-region replication using a Cloud SQL read replica is the correct approach. External replicas are for on-premises or other clouds; failover replicas are for high availability within the same region; multi-region is not a Cloud SQL option (it's for Cloud Storage or Spanner).
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Enable automatic failover to a replica in europe-west1
Why it's wrong here
Automatic failover in Cloud SQL is only supported for high-availability (HA) configurations where the standby resides in the same region as the primary. A cross-region replica is asynchronous and cannot be used as an automatic failover target because it would incur replication lag and risk data loss during a failover. Furthermore, automatic failover addresses availability, not read latency, so it would not solve the problem of providing fast reads to users in europe-west1.
- ✓
Create a cross-region read replica in europe-west1
Why this is correct
Creating a cross-region read replica in europe-west1 is correct because Cloud SQL supports read-only replicas in a different region, using asynchronous replication to serve queries close to the users. This reduces read latency for European users while keeping writes on the primary instance. The replica can also be manually promoted to a standalone primary for disaster recovery, but it does not require an HA configuration or additional on-premises infrastructure.
- ✗
Configure Cloud SQL for multi-region deployment
Why it's wrong here
Cloud SQL is a regional managed service and does not offer a multi-region deployment mode; instances and their HA standbys are always constrained to a single region. Unlike Spanner or Bigtable, Cloud SQL has no built-in concept of a multi-region instance. To achieve multi-region data presence, you must create read replicas in other regions—exactly what the correct answer does—so there is no separate 'multi-region' setting to configure.
- ✗
Create an external replica in europe-west1
Why it's wrong here
An external replica is a MySQL instance that you manage yourself, typically on-premises or on a VM, and it replicates from the Cloud SQL primary using binlog-based replication. It is not managed by Cloud SQL, so it lacks built-in integration with Cloud SQL's monitoring, SSL, and backup features, and requires significant operational overhead. While it could serve European reads, it introduces additional complexity and does not provide the simple, managed, low-latency read endpoint that a Cloud SQL cross-region read replica offers.
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Related to this question
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Google Cloud Platform Overview
Key term
Cross-Region Replication
Cross-Region Replication is the automated copying of data from a storage bucket in one geographic region to a bucket in a different geographic region for disaster recovery, compliance, or lower latency access.
Key term
Availability
Availability is the measure of how often a system or service is operational and accessible when needed, typically expressed as a percentage of uptime.
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Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
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.