Question 103 of 300
mediummultiple choiceObjective-mapped

ACE Practice Question: A startup is building a mobile app backend

This ACE practice question tests your understanding of a startup is building a mobile app backend. 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 startup is building a mobile app backend. Traffic is highly variable: 10 requests/second at night, peaking to 50,000 requests/second during business hours. The backend is stateless. Which compute option best handles this traffic variability with minimal cost and operational effort?

Question 1mediummultiple choice
Full question →

A startup is building a mobile app backend. Traffic is highly variable: 10 requests/second at night, peaking to 50,000 requests/second during business hours. The backend is stateless. Which compute option best handles this traffic variability with minimal cost and operational effort?

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

Compute Engine managed instance group with autoscaling.

MIGs have slower autoscaling response (minutes) and require a minimum instance count; scaling from 10 to 50,000 RPS would have latency and idle cost.

B

Best answer

Cloud Run with concurrency and max-instances configured.

Cloud Run scales from zero to thousands of instances in seconds, handles 50,000 RPS with automatic provisioning, and costs nothing when idle at night.

C

Distractor review

App Engine Standard environment with automatic scaling.

App Engine Standard also scales to zero but has language runtime constraints and less flexibility than Cloud Run for containerized workloads.

D

Distractor review

GKE cluster with Horizontal Pod Autoscaler.

GKE requires baseline node count (minimum cost even at night), and HPA scaling is slower than Cloud Run's request-based autoscaling.

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.

Practice this exam

Start a free ACE practice session

Short sessions build daily habit. Longer sessions build exam-day stamina. Try a timed session to simulate real conditions.

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: Cloud Run with concurrency and max-instances configured. — Cloud Run automatically scales from zero to many instances based on incoming requests, then scales back to zero when idle. For a stateless backend with extreme traffic variability, this provides automatic, fine-grained scaling without provisioning. You pay only for actual request processing time. This is significantly cheaper than maintaining pre-provisioned infrastructure for peak load. GKE with HPA requires a baseline of nodes and has slower scale-out.

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.

About these practice questions

Courseiva creates original exam-style practice questions with explanations and wrong-answer analysis. It does not publish real exam questions, exam dumps, or protected exam content. Learn why practice questions differ from exam dumps →

How Courseiva writes practice questions · Editorial policy

Discussion

Loading comments…

Sign in to join the discussion.

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.