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ACE Practice Question: On-call and receive a PagerDuty alert: `Cloud SQL…
This ACE practice question tests your understanding of on-call and receive a pagerduty alert: `cloud sql…. 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.
You are on-call and receive a PagerDuty alert: `Cloud SQL CPU utilization > 90% for 15 minutes`. Checking `pg_stat_activity`, you find 200 connections with many in `idle` state and 15 queries running for > 5 minutes each. The long queries are table scans on a 500 GB unindexed table. What should you do IMMEDIATELY to restore service, and what is the root cause fix?
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
Restart the Cloud SQL instance to clear all connections and queries.
Restarting causes full database downtime (60–120 seconds) and doesn't fix the root cause. Terminating specific long-running queries is faster and less disruptive.
B
Distractor review
Increase Cloud SQL's CPU to a larger machine type to handle the current load.
Scaling up may provide temporary relief but doesn't fix full table scans — they'll still be slow and consume disproportionate resources. Root cause is missing indexes.
C
Best answer
Terminate the long-running table scan queries immediately, then add indexes on the frequently queried columns as the root cause fix.
pg_terminate_backend(pid) kills the specific long-running queries to restore CPU. Adding indexes addresses the root cause: full table scans due to missing indexes.
D
Distractor review
Reduce `max_connections` to prevent new connections from adding load.
Reducing max_connections would block legitimate new connections without helping the running long queries. The problem is long-running queries, not connection count.
Common exam trap
Common exam trap: NAT rules depend on direction and matching traffic
NAT is not only about the public address. The inside/outside interface roles and the ACL or rule that matches traffic are just as important.
Technical deep dive
How to think about this question
NAT questions usually test address translation, overload/PAT behaviour, static mappings and whether the right traffic is being translated. Read the interface direction and address terms carefully.
KKey Concepts to Remember
- Static NAT maps one inside address to one outside address.
- PAT allows many inside hosts to share one public address using ports.
- Inside local and inside global describe the private and translated addresses.
- NAT ACLs identify traffic for translation, not always security filtering.
TExam Day Tips
- Identify inside and outside interfaces first.
- Check whether the scenario needs static NAT, dynamic NAT or PAT.
- Do not confuse NAT matching ACLs with normal packet-filtering intent.
Key takeaway
NAT direction and interface roles matter as much as the IP address mapping. Inside/outside designation controls which traffic is translated.
Related practice questions
Related ACE practice-question pages
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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
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Question 2
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Question 3
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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
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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?
Static NAT maps one inside address to one outside address.
What is the correct answer to this question?
The correct answer is: Terminate the long-running table scan queries immediately, then add indexes on the frequently queried columns as the root cause fix. — Immediate action: terminate the long-running table scan queries using `SELECT pg_terminate_backend(pid)` to free CPU and connections. This restores immediate service. Root cause: missing indexes on the 500 GB table cause sequential scans, consuming excessive CPU. The fix is to add appropriate indexes (e.g., `CREATE INDEX CONCURRENTLY`) during a maintenance window. CONCURRENTLY avoids locking the table during index creation.
What should I do if I get this ACE question wrong?
Review the four NAT address types (inside local, inside global, outside local, outside global), PAT port overload, and static vs dynamic NAT use cases. Then practise related ACE NAT questions on configuration and troubleshooting.
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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.