Google ACE Planning and Configuring a Cloud Solution Practice Question
A developer wants to deploy a new application on Google Cloud. The application consists of a frontend service that serves web traffic and a backend service that processes images. Both services need to be containerized. Which two compute options are serverless and support container deployment? (Choose 2)
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
✓
Cloud Functions (2nd gen)
Cloud Run and Cloud Functions (2nd gen) both support container images and are serverless (no server management, scale automatically). GKE and Compute Engine are not serverless. Cloud Functions (1st gen) does not support containers.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE)
Why it's wrong here
Google Kubernetes Engine is a managed Kubernetes service, but it is not serverless: you are responsible for creating and managing node pools, choosing machine types, and handling node upgrades, patching, and autoscaling of the cluster infrastructure. This operational overhead makes it a poor fit for a developer who wants a fully managed, serverless deployment with zero infrastructure management.
- ✓
Cloud Functions (2nd gen)
Why this is correct
Cloud Functions (2nd gen) is built on Cloud Run infrastructure and, unlike the 1st gen, supports deploying custom container images directly. It provides a fully managed, event-driven serverless execution environment that scales to zero and brings the same container runtime benefits as Cloud Run, while adding event-triggering capabilities like Pub/Sub, Cloud Storage, and HTTP invocations.
- ✓
Cloud Run
Why this is correct
Cloud Run is a fully managed serverless platform that runs stateless containers, automatically scaling from zero to any number of instances and only billing for resources used during request processing. It accepts any container image that implements the Cloud Run serving contract, making it ideal for deploying a new application packaged as a container, and it supports both HTTP requests and event-driven integration via Pub/Sub and other Google Cloud services.
- ✗
Compute Engine
Why it's wrong here
Compute Engine is an Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) offering that requires you to provision and manage virtual machine instances, including OS patches, firewall rules, disks, and auto-scaling configurations. Unlike serverless platforms, it does not scale to zero and has no built-in container runtime abstraction, so it demands ongoing capacity planning and operational maintenance that the developer would need to handle.
- ✗
Cloud Functions (1st gen)
Why it's wrong here
Cloud Functions (1st gen) only supports deploying source code written in specific supported runtimes (Node.js, Python, Go, Java, etc.) and does not allow you to provide a custom container image. This means an application packaged as a container cannot be deployed to 1st gen, and the platform also has different scaling limits and more limited control over the execution environment compared to 2nd gen or Cloud Run.
Quick reference
Cloud Service Model Comparison
| Model | You Manage | Provider Manages | Examples |
|---|---|---|---|
| IaaS | OS, runtime, apps, data | Hardware, hypervisor, networking | EC2, Azure VMs, GCP Compute Engine |
| PaaS | Apps and data | OS, runtime, middleware, hardware | Elastic Beanstalk, Azure App Service |
| SaaS | Data and settings only | Everything else | Microsoft 365, Salesforce, Workday |
| FaaS / Serverless | Function code only | Infra, scaling, runtime | Lambda, Azure Functions, Cloud Run |
| CaaS | Containers and apps | Kubernetes, OS, hardware | EKS, AKS, GKE |
Go deeper
Related to this question
Learn chapter
Google Cloud Platform Overview
Key term
GKE
GKE is Google's managed Kubernetes service that automates deploying, scaling, and managing containerized applications in the cloud.
Key term
Compute Engine
Compute Engine is Google Cloud's Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) offering that lets you create and run virtual machines on Google's infrastructure.
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JA
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.