Google ACE Practice Question: Ensuring Successful Operation of a Cloud Solution
You need to store application logs from a Compute Engine instance in a way that allows you to search and analyze them later. The logs should be retained for 30 days. Which Google Cloud service should you use?
⚠ Common exam trap
Many exam-takers confuse Cloud Monitoring with Cloud Logging; Monitoring is for metrics and alerting, while Logging is specifically for logs.
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
✓
Cloud Logging
Cloud Logging is the native Google Cloud service for log ingestion, storage, and analysis. It automatically collects logs from Compute Engine instances and other resources, retains them for 30 days by default, and provides a powerful query language for searching. Other services like Cloud Storage or BigQuery can be used for export, but they are not designed for direct log management.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
BigQuery
Why it's wrong here
BigQuery is a data warehouse for analytics, but it is not a log management service. You can export logs to BigQuery for advanced analysis, but that requires setting up a log sink and managing the dataset. For simply storing and searching logs for 30 days, Cloud Logging is the direct and appropriate service; BigQuery would be overkill and not natively integrated for log ingestion.
- ✓
Cloud Logging
Why this is correct
Cloud Logging is a fully managed service that ingests, stores, and allows you to search and analyze logs from Google Cloud resources, including Compute Engine instances. By default, logs are retained for 30 days, which matches the requirement. You can also create log sinks to export logs for longer retention if needed, but for the stated 30-day period, Cloud Logging alone is sufficient.
- ✗
Cloud Storage
Why it's wrong here
Cloud Storage is an object storage service that can store log files if you export them, but it does not provide native log ingestion, search, or analysis. You would need to manually configure the instance to write logs to a bucket and then use other tools to analyze them. This adds unnecessary complexity and does not meet the requirement for easy search and analysis.
- ✗
Cloud Monitoring
Why it's wrong here
Cloud Monitoring is designed for collecting and visualizing metrics, not for storing and searching log data. While it can create alerting policies based on log entries, it does not provide a log storage and analysis interface. Using it to store logs would be inappropriate and inefficient; it lacks the querying capabilities of Cloud Logging.
Go deeper
Related to this question
Learn chapter
Private Google Access and Private Service Access
Key term
Cloud storage
Cloud storage is a service that lets you save data on remote servers accessed over the internet instead of on your computer's hard drive.
Key term
Cloud logging
Cloud logging is the practice of collecting, storing, and analyzing log data generated by cloud-based resources and applications to monitor performance, troubleshoot issues, and maintain security.
About these practice questions
Courseiva writes every ACE question from scratch — 775 in total, each with an explanation and a wrong-answer breakdown. None are copied from real exams or dumps. Learn why practice questions differ from exam dumps →
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.