Google ACE Planning and Configuring a Cloud Solution Practice Question

Answer analysis

Option-by-option breakdown

For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.

• ✗

  No discount is needed; the price shown is final

  Why it's wrong here

  The Google Cloud Pricing Calculator's default estimate is based on on-demand list prices, which reflect the maximum payable amount for a given resource without any contractual commitment. For a workload that will run continuously for a full year, this 'final' price ignores the substantial savings available through committed use discounts (CUDs). Therefore, stating that no discount is needed is incorrect because CUDs can lower the total cost significantly and are a standard consideration for predictable, steady-state usage.

• ✓

  Committed use discount (1 year)

  Why this is correct

  Committed use discount (1 year) is the correct choice because it aligns with the scenario of running an n2-standard-4 instance consistently over a year. In the Google Cloud Pricing Calculator, selecting a 1-year CUD for compute resources like vCPUs and memory typically yields a discount of approximately 20-30% compared to on-demand pricing. The calculator has a dedicated field to add this commitment, and choosing it directly answers the question by reducing the estimated cost. This is the best option among the list since other discounts either do not apply or are automatically included.

• ✗

  Free tier discount

  Why it's wrong here

  The free tier discount applies only to very specific, small resource types—such as one f1-micro or e2-micro VM instance in particular regions like us-west1 and us-central1. It does not extend to an n2-standard-4 instance, which has substantially higher vCPU and memory allocations and is not covered by the free tier. Therefore, selecting 'Free tier discount' in the calculator would not provide any reduction for the described workload and would misrepresent the actual cost.

• ✗

  Sustained use discount only

  Why it's wrong here

  Sustained use discounts (SUDs) are automatically applied by Google Cloud for workloads that run more than 25% of a month, without requiring any selection in the Pricing Calculator. The calculator already incorporates SUDs into its estimate when applicable, so they are not a distinct discount type to add. The question asks which discount type to include in the estimate, which implies a commitment-based discount such as a committed use discount (CUD) that must be explicitly chosen. Relying solely on SUDs would ignore the more substantial savings offered by a 1-year CUD.

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