Google ACE A project is being decommissioned Practice Question

A project is being decommissioned. You need to delete it but want to ensure there is a 30-day window during which the deletion can be cancelled if needed. What happens when you delete a GCP project?

⚠ Common exam trap

Google Cloud often tests the misconception that deletion is immediate and irreversible, leading candidates to choose Option A, but GCP's 30-day soft-delete period is a key differentiator that must be remembered for the ACE exam.

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

✓

The project enters a 30-day pending deletion period; resources are inaccessible but the project can be restored within this window.

When you delete a GCP project, it enters a 30-day pending deletion period. During this time, all resources are inaccessible, but the project and its data can be fully restored if needed. This ensures a safety window before permanent deletion, aligning with the requirement for a 30-day cancellation window.

Answer analysis

Option-by-option breakdown

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

✗
The project is immediately and permanently deleted along with all resources.
Why it's wrong here
Google Cloud never performs an immediate, irreversible deletion when you delete a project. Instead, the project enters a 30-day pending deletion period in which the resources still exist but are shut down and inaccessible, allowing administrators to recover via `gcloud projects undelete`. Only after the full 30-day window elapses without restoration does the project and its resources become permanently deleted. Therefore, claiming immediate and permanent deletion is incorrect.
✓
The project enters a 30-day pending deletion period; resources are inaccessible but the project can be restored within this window.
Why this is correct
When a project is deleted, it enters a 30-day pending deletion period by default, not immediate destruction. Throughout this period, all resources are inaccessible—VMs are stopped, storage buckets are unreachable—but the project metadata and underlying resources remain intact for recovery. An administrator can cancel the deletion anytime using the `gcloud projects undelete PROJECT_ID` command, which restores the project and its resources to full operation. After 30 days, the deletion becomes permanent and recovery is impossible.
✗
The project is archived but billing continues for 30 days before final deletion.
Why it's wrong here
During pending deletion, the project is not merely 'archived' — it is actively being prepared for permanent removal, with compute instances stopped and services disabled. Critically, billing ceases during this period because no resources are consuming charges; you are not billed for an additional 30 days of usage. The only billing that may still appear is for pending invoices or charges incurred before deletion, but the project itself is not accruing new costs.
✗
All resources are deleted immediately but the project ID is reserved for 90 days.
Why it's wrong here
This option gets the order of operations backwards: resources are not deleted immediately; they are preserved throughout the 30-day pending deletion period precisely so they can be recovered. Only after the grace period expires does permanent deletion occur, at which point data is eventually purged from Google's storage systems. Additionally, the project ID is not reserved for 90 days after final deletion — it becomes available for reuse immediately after permanent deletion (or may remain unavailable if recently used), so the '90-day reservation' is a fabrication.

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Google ACE A project is being decommissioned Practice Question

Why each option matters

Option-by-option breakdown

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