Google ACE Setting Up a Cloud Solution Environment Practice Question
You are setting up a new GCP project for a microservices application. You need to select which APIs to enable. Which THREE APIs are likely required? (Choose 3)
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
✓
cloudbuild.googleapis.com
For a microservices application on Kubernetes, you need the Kubernetes Engine API (container.googleapis.com), and often the Cloud Build API (cloudbuild.googleapis.com) for CI/CD and Compute Engine API (compute.googleapis.com) as a dependency for GKE. Cloud Storage API is not necessarily required unless using Cloud Storage. BigQuery is for analytics.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
storage.googleapis.com
Why it's wrong here
The Cloud Storage API (storage.googleapis.com) provides object storage buckets, but it is not a prerequisite for deploying microservices on GCP. While GKE clusters may indirectly use GCS for some features like backup of etcd snapshots, enabling this API is not required for the core microservices infrastructure. Your application or CI/CD pipeline may use GCS for storing build artifacts or data, but that is an explicit architectural choice, not a standard requirement.
- ✓
cloudbuild.googleapis.com
Why this is correct
Cloud Build (cloudbuild.googleapis.com) is the managed CI/CD service used to compile source code and build container images. For microservices, each service is typically packaged as a separate container, and Cloud Build provides a reliable, serverless way to automate those builds via triggers and build steps. It integrates with Artifact Registry to store the resulting images, which are then deployed to GKE, making it a common and often essential part of a microservices deployment pipeline.
- ✓
container.googleapis.com
Why this is correct
The Kubernetes Engine API (container.googleapis.com) is the control plane API for Google Kubernetes Engine. Enabling this API is mandatory to create, configure, and manage GKE clusters, which are the foundation for orchestrating microservices in containers. Without this API, you cannot use GKE at all, including cluster creation, node pool scaling, or applying Kubernetes manifests. It is the central API for any GKE-based microservices architecture.
- ✓
compute.googleapis.com
Why this is correct
The Compute Engine API (compute.googleapis.com) is required because every GKE cluster runs its nodes as Compute Engine virtual machine instances. Even though GKE is a managed Kubernetes service, the underlying worker nodes are still VMs, so this API must be enabled to allow GKE to provision, resize, and manage those instances. Without the Compute Engine API, GKE cluster creation fails because it cannot create the needed VM-based node pools.
- ✗
bigquery.googleapis.com
Why it's wrong here
The BigQuery API (bigquery.googleapis.com) is for serverless data warehousing and analytical SQL queries, which is unrelated to the runtime or deployment needs of microservices. Unless your microservices specifically need to write or query BigQuery tables, enabling this API adds unnecessary complexity and potential security surface. It is not part of the standard set of APIs required to run containerized microservices on GKE.
Go deeper
Related to this question
Learn chapter
Google Cloud Platform Overview
Key term
Container
A container is a lightweight, standalone software package that includes everything needed to run an application, such as code, runtime, system tools, and libraries.
Key term
Compute Engine
Compute Engine is Google Cloud's Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) offering that lets you create and run virtual machines on Google's infrastructure.
About these practice questions
This ACE question is part of Courseiva's 769-question bank — original exam-style content with full explanations and wrong-answer analysis, never real exam questions or exam dumps. Learn why practice questions differ from exam dumps →
JA
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.