ACE Practice Question: A DevOps team monitors a Cloud SQL instance and…
This ACE practice question tests your understanding of a devops team monitors a cloud sql instance and…. 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.
A DevOps team monitors a Cloud SQL instance and notices its CPU is consistently above 85% for several hours. The instance handles a critical production database. What should be the team's immediate action?
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.
Distractor review
Restart the Cloud SQL instance to clear CPU-intensive processes
Restarting clears connections and may temporarily reduce load, but it doesn't address the underlying capacity issue and disrupts the production database.
Distractor review
Delete and recreate the instance with a larger machine type
Deleting and recreating the instance loses all data unless a backup is restored — a destructive and unnecessary approach when Cloud SQL supports in-place resize.
Distractor review
Enable read replicas to distribute query load
Read replicas help with read-heavy workloads but require application changes to route reads to replicas — not an immediate fix for high CPU on the primary.
Best answer
Scale up the Cloud SQL instance machine type to add more vCPUs
Scaling up the Cloud SQL instance (more CPUs/RAM) immediately provides more compute capacity. For Cloud SQL, this operation involves a brief restart but is the fastest relief for CPU saturation.
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
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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: Scale up the Cloud SQL instance machine type to add more vCPUs — Persistent high CPU on Cloud SQL indicates the instance is undersized or experiencing query efficiency problems. The fastest resolution is to scale up the instance (more vCPUs/memory) which can be done online for Cloud SQL. Long-term, query optimization and read replicas can address the root cause.
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.