Cloud Digital Leader Google Cloud Products and Services Practice Question
A company has a batch processing job that runs once per day and can be interrupted without significant impact. They want to reduce costs by using Google Cloud infrastructure. Which compute option should they choose?
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
✓
Preemptible VMs
Preemptible VMs offer significant cost savings (up to 60-91% discount) but can be terminated at any time by Google. They are ideal for fault-tolerant batch jobs. Spot VMs are similar but with a newer pricing model (no maximum runtime). Both are good, but Preemptible is the classic answer. Custom machine types are not cost-saving by themselves; standard VMs are more expensive.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Standard persistent disk
Why it's wrong here
Standard persistent disk is a network-attached storage resource that is billed based on capacity and IOPS, independent of the VM's compute pricing. Attaching a persistent disk does not change the underlying virtual machine's hourly cost, so it cannot reduce the compute expense of a batch job. The only way to lower compute costs is to use a cheaper compute offering or pricing model, not by changing storage.
- ✓
Preemptible VMs
Why this is correct
Preemptible VMs are instances that run on Google Cloud's surplus capacity at a fraction of the normal cost, often up to 80% cheaper. They can be terminated abruptly by Google Cloud, but a batch job that runs only once per day and can tolerate interruptions is an ideal candidate. By designing the job to restart or resume from checkpoints, the company can achieve substantial cost savings while maintaining reliability.
- ✗
Sustained use discounts
Why it's wrong here
Sustained use discounts are automatic percentage discounts applied to standard VMs that run for more than 25% of a month, gradually reaching up to 30% for full-time usage. A once-per-day batch job typically runs for only short bursts, so it accumulates few hours and triggers little or no sustained use discount. Moreover, preemptible VMs already offer a larger baseline discount without requiring any specific uptime threshold.
- ✗
Custom machine types
Why it's wrong here
Custom machine types allow you to specify exact vCPU and memory combinations to avoid overprovisioning and reduce waste. However, the pricing for custom machine types is still based on the same per-vCPU and per-GB rates as predefined types, so there is no inherent cost-per-second reduction. The savings from right-sizing are real but limited to the scale of the workload, and they do not compete with preemptible pricing for a short-duration batch job.
Go deeper
Related to this question
Learn chapter
Real-Time Analytics with Pub/Sub and Dataflow
Key term
Batch processing
Batch processing is a method of running high-volume, repetitive data jobs where a group of transactions is collected, processed together automatically, and then results are produced without real-time user interaction.
Key term
Model
In IT and AI, a model is a trained mathematical representation that learns patterns from data to make predictions or decisions.
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JA
Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
This GCDL 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 GCDL exam.