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ACE Practice Question: An application running on a Compute Engine VM…
This ACE practice question tests your understanding of an application running on a compute engine vm…. Read the scenario carefully and evaluate each option against the stated constraints before committing to an answer. After answering, compare your reasoning against the explanation and wrong-answer breakdown below. Once you have made your selection, read the full explanation to reinforce the concept and understand why each distractor is designed to mislead on exam day.
An application running on a Compute Engine VM needs to read objects from a Cloud Storage bucket in the same project. What is the recommended authentication approach?
Answer choices
Why each option matters
Good practice is not just finding the correct option. The wrong answers often show the exact trap the exam wants you to fall into.
A
Distractor review
Create an API key and store it as an environment variable on the VM
API keys are not recommended for server-to-server authentication and do not support fine-grained IAM access control for Cloud Storage.
B
Distractor review
Grant the VM's IP address access to the bucket using a VPC firewall rule
Firewall rules control network traffic — they do not grant IAM permissions to access Cloud Storage resources.
C
Distractor review
Embed a developer's user account credentials in the application configuration file
Embedding user credentials is a serious security risk — credentials can leak and are tied to a human account rather than the application.
D
Best answer
Attach a service account with the Storage Object Viewer role to the VM
Service accounts attached to VMs allow applications to authenticate automatically via the metadata server. This eliminates the need to manage credentials directly.
Common exam trap
Common exam trap: answer the scenario, not the keyword
Many certification questions include familiar terms but test a specific constraint. Read the exact wording before choosing an answer that is generally true but wrong for this case.
Technical deep dive
How to think about this question
This question should be treated as a scenario, not a definition check. Identify the problem, the constraint and the best action. Then compare each option against those facts.
KKey Concepts to Remember
- Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
- Find the constraint that changes the correct option.
- Eliminate answers that are true in general but not in this case.
- Use explanations to understand the rule behind the answer.
TExam Day Tips
- Underline the problem statement mentally.
- Watch for words such as best, first, most likely and least administrative effort.
- Review why wrong options are wrong, not only why the correct option is correct.
Key takeaway
Answer the scenario, not the keyword: identify the specific constraint before choosing the most familiar-sounding option.
Related practice questions
Related ACE practice-question pages
Use these pages to review the topic behind this question. This is how one missed question becomes focused revision.
More questions from this exam
Keep practising from the same exam bank, or move into a focused topic page if this question exposed a weak area.
Question 1
What is the correct order of the Google Cloud resource hierarchy from highest to lowest level?
Question 2
A compliance archive stores legal documents accessed at most once per quarter. Which Cloud Storage class minimizes storage cost while meeting that access pattern?
Question 3
Which gcloud command creates a Compute Engine VM named 'web-01' using the e2-medium machine type in zone us-central1-a?
Question 4
A team wants to receive an email alert when the average CPU utilization of VMs in a managed instance group exceeds 80% for more than 5 minutes. What should they create in Cloud Monitoring?
Question 5
A junior developer needs read-only access to all GCP resources in a project. Which IAM role grants the minimum permissions required?
Question 6
A startup creates its first Google Cloud project. Before deploying any paid resources, what must be linked to the project?
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FAQ
Questions learners often ask
What does this ACE question test?
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
What is the correct answer to this question?
The correct answer is: Attach a service account with the Storage Object Viewer role to the VM — Service accounts are the recommended identity for applications running on GCP infrastructure. Attaching a service account with the minimum required role (Storage Object Viewer) to the VM allows the application to authenticate using the instance metadata service — no credentials need to be embedded in code or config files.
What should I do if I get this ACE question wrong?
Identify which ACE exam domain this question belongs to, then review the specific concept being tested. Practise related questions in that domain and focus on understanding why each wrong answer is tempting — not just why the correct answer is right.
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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.