Google ACE Practice Question: A developer attempts to create a Cloud SQL…

Answer analysis

Option-by-option breakdown

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

• ✗

  Assign the developer the Cloud SQL Admin IAM role

  Why it's wrong here

  Assigning the developer the Cloud SQL Admin IAM role is not the fix because IAM roles govern what actions a user is permitted to take on existing resources, not whether the underlying service API is enabled at the project level. The 'API not enabled' error originates from the serviceusage system, indicating that sqladmin.googleapis.com has not been activated for that specific project. Even a user with the Owner role would still receive the same error until the API is explicitly enabled, since IAM authorization and API enablement are two separate layers of access control.

• ✗

  Request a quota increase for Cloud SQL in the project

  Why it's wrong here

  Requesting a quota increase for Cloud SQL would not address the 'API not enabled' error because quota limits are project-level constraints on resource usage once the API is already operational, such as the maximum number of Cloud SQL instances or total CPU cores. If the Cloud SQL Admin API is disabled, no request reaches the quota system, so the error would appear before quota checks are even performed. Quota increases are for exceeding resource limits, not for activating a service, and attempting to raise quotas for a disabled API will not change its enabled state.

• ✓

  Enable the Cloud SQL Admin API via APIs & Services > Library in the Console

  Why this is correct

  Enabling the Cloud SQL Admin API via APIs & Services > Library is the correct solution because this error directly indicates that sqladmin.googleapis.com has not been enabled in the project. In the Google Cloud Console, you navigate to APIs & Services > Library, search for 'Cloud SQL Admin API', and click Enable, which turns on the service for that project. The equivalent command-line approach is `gcloud services enable sqladmin.googleapis.com`, and once the API is enabled, the previously failing operation will succeed without any further IAM or quota changes.

• ✗

  Create a new project — Cloud SQL is enabled by default in new projects

  Why it's wrong here

  Creating a new project is not a valid fix because Google Cloud does not enable most APIs, including the Cloud SQL Admin API, by default in any new project. Only a small set of core APIs like Compute Engine and Cloud Deployment Manager are pre-enabled; all other services, including Cloud SQL, must be explicitly enabled in each project where they are used. The error will simply recur in the new project, so the correct action is to enable the API in the original project rather than abandoning it, which wastes time and does not resolve the root cause.

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