easyMultiple Select
Google ACE Practice Question: Which THREE actions are recommended to ensure the…
Which THREE actions are recommended to ensure the successful operation of a Compute Engine instance running a production workload?
⚠ Common exam trap
The trap is selecting options that seem beneficial but are not universally recommended, such as using a single zone or adding a GPU, which are workload-specific.
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
✓
Enable deletion protection on the instance.
Option A is correct because enabling deletion protection on the instance prevents accidental deletion of a production VM, which is a recommended safeguard for critical workloads. Option B is correct because configuring a health check with an autohealing policy on the managed instance group automatically recreates unhealthy instances, maintaining availability and reliability of the production service. Option D is correct because scheduled snapshots with a retention policy provide durable, point-in-time backups of persistent disks, enabling recovery from data corruption or failures. Option C is not recommended because placing a production subnet in a single zone creates a single point of failure; a multi-zone or regional design is preferred for high availability. Option E is not a general recommendation because attaching a GPU is only relevant for specific accelerated workloads such as ML inference, not for ensuring the successful operation of a typical production instance.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✓
Enable deletion protection on the instance.
Why this is correct
Enabling deletion protection prevents accidental removal of the production instance, satisfying the requirement to safeguard availability against human error. Unlike snapshots or backups, which aid recovery after loss, this setting blocks the delete operation itself, ensuring the workload keeps running without interruption.
- ✓
Set up a health check and autohealing policy for the instance group.
Why this is correct
Health checks probe instance responsiveness, and autohealing recreates unhealthy members automatically, satisfying the requirement for continuous production availability. This directly addresses the stem's demand for successful operation by removing manual intervention when an instance fails, ensuring the managed instance group maintains capacity without operator action.
- ✗
Use a custom VPC with a subnet in a single zone.
Why it's wrong here
A single-zone subnet places the instance in one failure domain, so a zone outage halts the workload. It is tempting because a custom VPC gives control over addressing and firewall rules, but that benefit is separate; production resilience requires subnets spread across multiple zones.
- ✓
Configure snapshots with a retention policy.
Why this is correct
Scheduled snapshots with a retention policy provide durable, point-in-time recovery for persistent disks, satisfying the production requirement for data protection and business continuity. They guard against corruption, accidental deletion, or zone failure without impacting running workloads, since snapshots are taken incrementally in the background.
- ✗
Attach a GPU for machine learning inference.
Why it's wrong here
Attaching a GPU adds accelerated compute for inference but does nothing for availability, backups or scaling, which production operation requires. It is tempting because ML workloads genuinely need GPUs, yet that is a workload-specific sizing decision, not a general production-readiness action.
Visual reference
Go deeper
Related to this question
Learn chapter
Compute Engine Machine Types and Families
Key term
Managed instance group
A managed instance group is a collection of identical virtual machine instances that are automatically managed as a single unit to ensure high availability and scalability.
Key term
Subnet
A subnet is a logical subdivision of an IP network, created by partitioning a larger network address space using subnet masks.
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JA
Written and reviewed by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
Last reviewed September 2026 · checked against the official Google Cloud exam blueprint
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.