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Google ACE Practice Question: Is deploying a stateful application on Google…
An organization is deploying a stateful application on Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE). The application requires persistent storage with high read/write performance and must be available across multiple zones for disaster recovery. Which storage solution should they use?
⚠ Common exam trap
Google Cloud often tests the distinction between zonal and regional persistent disks, where candidates mistakenly choose zonal disks for high performance without considering the multi-zone disaster recovery requirement, or they confuse Cloud Filestore's shared file access with the block storage performance needed for stateful applications.
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
✓
Regional persistent disk
Regional persistent disks provide synchronous replication across two zones in the same region, ensuring data availability during a zonal failure. They offer high read/write performance suitable for stateful applications and can be attached to GKE pods via PersistentVolumeClaims, meeting the requirement for multi-zone disaster recovery.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Cloud Filestore
Why it's wrong here
Cloud Filestore is a managed NFS file share service, not block storage. It provides file-level access over the network, which introduces protocol overhead and cannot serve as a boot disk or a directly attached volume for a stateful application that expects raw block I/O. Its performance is optimized for concurrent file access across many clients, not the low-latency, high-IOPS random writes typical of stateful databases, and it offers no synchronous cross-zone replication or snapshot integration for Compute Engine disks.
- ✓
Regional persistent disk
Why this is correct
Regional persistent disks are block storage volumes that synchronously replicate data across two zones within a region, providing a multi-zone failure domain while maintaining high performance and low latency. They attach directly to Compute Engine VMs as boot or data disks, ensuring durable, consistent storage for stateful applications. This combination of performance and zone-redundant replication makes them the ideal choice for a stateful app that needs both high IOPS and disaster recovery without relying on manual snapshot restoration.
- ✗
Local SSD
Why it's wrong here
Local SSDs are physically attached to the host server of a Compute Engine VM, offering extremely high IOPS and ultra-low latency. However, their data is ephemeral: it persists only for the life of the VM and is lost if the instance stops, migrates, or the underlying host fails. They are strictly zonal, cannot be detached and reattached to another VM, and have no cross-zone replication, making them completely unsuitable for a stateful application that requires durable, multi-zone data persistence.
- ✗
Zonal persistent disk
Why it's wrong here
Zonal persistent disks provide durable, high-performance block storage but are constrained to a single zone, creating a single point of failure. If that zone experiences an outage, the disk becomes inaccessible, and the stateful application will go down until you restore from a snapshot to another zone—a process that introduces significant downtime and potential data loss. They lack the synchronous cross-zone replication of regional persistent disks, so they do not meet the multi-zone disaster recovery requirement that the application needs.
Go deeper
Related to this question
Learn chapter
Google Cloud Platform Overview
Key term
GKE
GKE is Google's managed Kubernetes service that automates deploying, scaling, and managing containerized applications in the cloud.
Key term
Region
A region is a distinct geographic location where a cloud provider operates multiple data centers that are connected by low-latency networks and provide cloud services.
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Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
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.