Google ACE Practice Question: Arrange the steps to create a Cloud SQL MySQL…

Answer analysis

Option-by-option breakdown

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

• ✓

  Create a Cloud SQL MySQL instance → Configure a database → Connect using the Cloud SQL Proxy

  Why this is correct

  The Google Cloud SQL Admin API models an instance as the parent resource; databases are children that can only be created under a pre-existing instance. Therefore, the instance must be created first, which provisions the MySQL server and its endpoint (IPv4 address or private IP). Once the instance exists, creating a database inside it is straightforward, and only then does using the Cloud SQL Proxy make sense, because the proxy is a client-side binary that establishes an authenticated, encrypted tunnel to that specific instance to reach the database. This ordering matches how the gcloud and console workflows enforce dependencies.

• ✗

  Configure a database → Create a Cloud SQL MySQL instance → Connect using the Cloud SQL Proxy

  Why it's wrong here

  Attempting to configure a database before the instance exists is impossible because the Cloud SQL Admin API's databases.create method requires the instance ID and will return a 404 error if that parent resource is missing. The instance provides both the storage engine and the network endpoint the database lives on, so there is no target for configuration. The proxy step is also dependent on the instance, but the fundamental flaw here is the database-first order contradicts the API hierarchy and can't be executed.

• ✗

  Create a Cloud SQL MySQL instance → Connect using the Cloud SQL Proxy → Configure a database

  Why it's wrong here

  Establishing a connection via the Cloud SQL Proxy before creating the database results in an empty MySQL server with no database to configure; any 'configure database' operation would fail because the database does not exist. The proxy only multiplexes connections to the instance and does not create or initialize databases itself. In the correct workflow, you first create the database through the API or SQL command, then connect and set options like charset, user permissions, or flags; placing the proxy step between instance creation and database setup skips the essential creation step.

• ✗

  Connect using the Cloud SQL Proxy → Create a Cloud SQL MySQL instance → Configure a database

  Why it's wrong here

  This ordering is circularly invalid because the Cloud SQL Proxy must resolve the instance's connection name (e.g., project:region:instance) to establish a network connection, and that instance does not yet exist. Additionally, you cannot configure a database without an instance, so two of the three steps are blocked from the start. The only way to make this order work would involve creating the instance and database via some other API calls, which violates the stated sequence, making the order incorrect.

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