Cloud Digital Leader Google Cloud Products and Services Practice Question
A company runs batch processing jobs on scheduled intervals. They want to minimise costs by using short-lived compute capacity that can be interrupted but offers significant discounts. Which type of Compute Engine VM should they use?
⚠ Common exam trap
GCDL often tests the distinction between preemptible/spot VMs and other VM types — candidates may pick high-memory or confidential VMs based on workload characteristics, missing that the key requirement is interruptible, discounted capacity.
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 are short-lived Compute Engine instances that offer up to 60-91% discounts compared to standard VMs but can be terminated by Google at any time with a 30-second notice. They are ideal for batch processing jobs that are fault-tolerant and can be interrupted, matching the requirement to minimize costs with interruptible capacity.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
E2 high-memory VMs
Why it's wrong here
E2 high-memory VMs are general-purpose virtual machines with standard on-demand pricing. Although they offer high memory at a relatively low baseline rate, they are not preemptible and provide no discount for interruptible or fault-tolerant workloads. You would pay the full price even if your batch job is resilient to interruption, so they are not an optimal cost choice for scheduled batch processing.
- ✗
Sole-tenant nodes
Why it's wrong here
Sole-tenant nodes dedicate an entire physical server to your workloads, often for compliance, licensing, or strict isolation requirements. They are billed per node rather than per vCPU or memory, making them significantly more expensive than regular VMs, especially for transient or batch workloads. They offer no interruptibility-based discount and would not reduce costs for a fault-tolerant batch pipeline.
- ✓
Preemptible VMs
Why this is correct
Preemptible VMs (and Spot VMs) are Compute Engine instances that can be terminated anywhere anytime due to excess capacity reuse, but they can be used for batch and fault-tolerant workloads. They are up to 60–80% cheaper than standard VMs, making them the ideal choice for a company running scheduled batch processing that can checkpoint and resume. To use them effectively, the application must handle unexpected termination gracefully and be restartable from saved state.
- ✗
Confidential VMs
Why it's wrong here
Confidential VMs provide memory encryption while data is in use, using technologies like AMD Secure Encrypted Virtualization (SEV) or Intel TDX. This security feature is intended for protecting sensitive workloads and does not lower compute costs; in fact, it often incurs a small premium over standard VM pricing. It has no relation to batch processing or interruptibility, so it would not help reduce costs for scheduled jobs.
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Key term
Compute Engine
Compute Engine is Google Cloud's Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) offering that lets you create and run virtual machines on Google's infrastructure.
Key term
Batch
Batch is a cloud computing service that runs large numbers of computing jobs as a group, or batch, without needing to manage individual servers.
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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.