Cloud Digital Leader Fundamental Cloud Concepts Practice Question
A company is using Cloud SQL for MySQL and notices that read queries are becoming slow as the application scales. They want to offload read traffic from the primary instance to improve performance. Which Cloud SQL feature should they enable?
⚠ Common exam trap
Candidates often confuse high-availability/failover replicas with read replicas — both are called 'replicas,' but only read replicas serve client read traffic, while failover replicas are passive standbys.
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
✓
Read replicas
Read replicas in Cloud SQL for MySQL are designed specifically to offload read traffic from the primary instance by maintaining an asynchronous copy of the data that applications can query directly. By directing SELECT queries to one or more read replicas, the primary instance is freed up to handle write operations, improving overall throughput and reducing latency on the primary. This is the standard horizontal scaling pattern for read-heavy Cloud SQL workloads.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Automatic failover replicas
Why it's wrong here
Automatic failover replicas are a high-availability feature: they maintain a standby instance that is promoted to primary only if the original primary fails. During normal operation, the failover replica does not accept any traffic, including read queries, so it cannot offload or distribute read load from the primary instance.
- ✗
Connection pooling
Why it's wrong here
Connection pooling is a client-side or proxy-level technique that reuses existing database connections to reduce connection overhead, such as handshake time and memory usage. It does not change which instance executes the queries—all connections still target the same primary instance—so it does not separate read workloads from the primary or provide additional read throughput.
- ✗
Point-in-time recovery
Why it's wrong here
Point-in-time recovery (PITR) is a backup and restore capability that allows you to recover a database to a specific timestamp using binary log files. It is purely an operational data-protection feature and has no effect on runtime query performance or on where queries are executed, so it cannot help with scaling read traffic.
- ✓
Read replicas
Why this is correct
Read replicas are asynchronous copies of the primary instance that support only read-only traffic. By routing SELECT queries to read replicas, you reduce the read load on the primary and increase overall scalability. This is the correct approach for offloading reads, though applications must be configured to use the replica endpoints, and data may experience a slight replication lag.
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Google Cloud Data Catalog
Key term
SQL
SQL is a standardized programming language used to manage and manipulate relational databases, enabling querying, updating, and data retrieval.
Key term
Data
Data is raw, unprocessed information, like numbers, words, or measurements, that can be stored, processed, and analyzed by computers.
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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 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.