Cloud Digital Leader Fundamental Cloud Concepts Practice Question
A company is migrating its on-premises data warehouse to Google Cloud. The data warehouse contains structured relational data (sales transactions, customer records) and is queried using standard SQL. The company wants to separate compute and storage costs and automatically scale compute resources up and down based on query load. Which Google Cloud service is most appropriate?
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
✓
BigQuery
BigQuery is a serverless data warehouse that separates compute and storage, scales automatically, and supports standard SQL. Cloud SQL is for OLTP, not data warehousing. Spanner is globally distributed OLTP. Dataproc is for Hadoop/Spark workloads, not directly for SQL warehousing.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Cloud SQL
Why it's wrong here
Cloud SQL is for transactional workloads, not for large-scale warehousing.
- ✓
BigQuery
Why this is correct
BigQuery is a serverless data warehouse with automatic scaling and pay-per-query pricing.
- ✗
Dataproc
Why it's wrong here
Dataproc runs Hadoop/Spark clusters; not a managed SQL warehouse.
- ✗
Cloud Spanner
Why it's wrong here
Spanner is a globally distributed relational database for OLTP, not a data warehouse.
Quick reference
Cloud Service Model Comparison
| Model | You Manage | Provider Manages | Examples |
|---|---|---|---|
| IaaS | OS, runtime, apps, data | Hardware, hypervisor, networking | EC2, Azure VMs, GCP Compute Engine |
| PaaS | Apps and data | OS, runtime, middleware, hardware | Elastic Beanstalk, Azure App Service |
| SaaS | Data and settings only | Everything else | Microsoft 365, Salesforce, Workday |
| FaaS / Serverless | Function code only | Infra, scaling, runtime | Lambda, Azure Functions, Cloud Run |
| CaaS | Containers and apps | Kubernetes, OS, hardware | EKS, AKS, GKE |
Go deeper
Related to this question
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Cloud Digital Transformation
Key term
Cloud SQL
Cloud SQL is a fully managed relational database service that lets you set up, maintain, and scale SQL databases (like MySQL, PostgreSQL, and SQL Server) in the cloud without managing the underlying infrastructure.
Key term
Service
A service is a software component or system that performs a specific function and is available to be used by other programs or users over a network.
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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.