Cloud Digital Leader Fundamental Cloud Concepts Practice Question

Answer analysis

Option-by-option breakdown

For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.

• ✗

  VM with committed use discount

  Why it's wrong here

  Committed use discounts (CUDs) are pricing models that require a contractual commitment to run VMs for a 1- or 3-year term, with a corresponding discount on compute costs. For a nightly batch job that runs only for a few hours per day, a CUD would lock in capacity at a fixed cost regardless of actual usage, making it inefficient because you pay for the full term even when the VM is idle. Additionally, CUDs are best for predictable, always-on workloads; the sporadic, short-lived nature of nightly batch jobs would not benefit from the discount relative to the total cost of ownership. Thus, while CUDs lower the per-hour rate, they are economically mismatched for this use case.

• ✓

  Preemptible VM

  Why this is correct

  Preemptible VMs are Compute Engine instances that are computationally identical to standard VMs but are offered at a significantly lower price (typically up to 60-80% cheaper) because Google can terminate them at any time should it need the capacity for other workloads. They are ideal for batch processing jobs that can be restarted or that use checkpointing, because a termination simply means the job can be resumed from the last saved state. For a nightly data processing job that is inherently fault-tolerant and can tolerate occasional interruptions, preemptible VMs provide the most cost-effective solution without sacrificing correctness if designed with retry logic.

• ✗

  Sole-tenant node

  Why it's wrong here

  Sole-tenant nodes are physical servers that are dedicated to a single customer, providing strong workload isolation, compliance, and licensing benefits. This dedicated hardware model incurs higher costs than shared infrastructure because you are paying for the entire physical server regardless of utilization. For a batch job that processes data every night and has no regulatory or licensing requirement for dedicated hardware, sole-tenant nodes introduce unnecessary expense and complexity without any functional advantage.

• ✗

  Standard VM

  Why it's wrong here

  Standard (on-demand) VMs are regular Compute Engine instances that run continuously until you explicitly stop them, with a per-second billing structure that reflects their unrestricted availability. They do not offer the cost savings of preemptible VMs, nor do they have the guaranteed capacity of committed use contracts; they are simply the default compute option for workloads that need persistent, reliable uptime. For a batch job that only runs nightly and can tolerate interruption, using standard VMs would mean paying the full on-demand rate during those hours, which is cost-inefficient compared to preemptible instances that offer the same compute capability at a fraction of the price.

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