Cloud Digital Leader Fundamental Cloud Concepts Practice Question
A company runs a critical application on Compute Engine that must always be available, even if an entire zone fails. The application stores state in a Cloud Spanner instance. The operations team wants to test disaster recovery procedures without affecting production. Which TWO actions should they take? (Select two.)
⚠ Common exam trap
The trap is assuming that any copy of production data (same instance, different DB, or read-only access) is safe for DR testing — but only clones and backup restores create truly isolated instances that can be failed over without impacting production.
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
✓
Create a Cloud Spanner clone from the production instance for testing
Option D is correct because Cloud Spanner clones create an independent, cost-efficient copy of the production instance (including its databases and data) that can be used for disaster recovery testing without touching production. Option E is correct because restoring a backup to a new Cloud Spanner instance produces a separate instance that is fully isolated from production, so testers can validate recovery procedures safely. Option A is wrong because using a different database on the same production instance still shares the instance's resources and risks impacting production. Option B is wrong because a manual failover of the production Spanner instance would disrupt the live production system, which the team explicitly wants to avoid. Option C is wrong because read-only IAM access to production does not provide an isolated environment for testing disaster recovery procedures.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Use the same Spanner instance but with a different database
Why it's wrong here
Using the same Cloud Spanner instance but a different database does not provide resource isolation because all databases in an instance share the same pool of compute, memory, and storage I/O. A test workload with heavy reads or writes can degrade production latency and availability, and schema changes, backups, or instance-level configuration are also shared across databases. For safe testing, a separate instance is required to prevent any cross-environment impact.
- ✗
Perform a manual failover of the production Spanner instance to another region
Why it's wrong here
Performing a manual failover of the production Spanner instance to another region changes the leadership of the instance for the entire production workload, causing a potential brief interruption and requiring client connections to be updated. It does not create a separate test environment; it simply moves production to a different regional location, so DR testing would still interact with live production traffic and cannot be used to validate application changes in isolation.
- ✗
Modify IAM roles to grant testers read-only access to production
Why it's wrong here
Granting testers read-only IAM access to production data exposes sensitive live data to non-production roles and violates the principle of least privilege, increasing the risk of data exfiltration or accidental misuse. It also fails to isolate testing because read queries can affect performance through database-side resource consumption, and functional or DR tests that require write operations will not work under read-only permissions.
- ✓
Create a Cloud Spanner clone from the production instance for testing
Why this is correct
Creating a Cloud Spanner clone from the production instance uses storage-level snapshot technology to produce an independent copy of the database in a separate instance, allowing tests to run against near-current data without consuming production resources. This is the recommended approach for development and integration testing because it takes only minutes even for large databases, and the clone is fully isolated with its own compute and storage allocation.
- ✓
Restore a backup to a new Cloud Spanner instance
Why this is correct
Restoring a backup to a new Cloud Spanner instance creates a fully independent environment using data from a specific point in time, which is essential for validating disaster recovery readiness. This approach tests both the integrity of the backup and the restore process itself, but it takes longer than a clone because the data must be physically rebuilt; it is the correct choice when you need to verify that your DR plan will actually work.
Go deeper
Related to this question
Learn chapter
Private Service Connect and Private Access
Key term
Recovery
Recovery is the process of restoring systems, data, and operations after a security incident, failure, or disaster to return to normal functioning.
Key term
Disaster recovery
Disaster recovery is a set of policies, procedures, and tools that help an organization restore critical IT systems and data after a disruptive event.
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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 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.