Cloud Digital Leader Fundamental Cloud Concepts Practice Question
A company with a global user base wants to deploy a web application on Google Cloud that is highly available and resilient to zone failures. The application runs on Compute Engine and uses a stateful backend (e.g., a database). Which THREE design elements should they implement?
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
✓
Use a managed database service with automatic failover across zones (e.g., Cloud SQL High Availability)
To survive zone failures, deploy across multiple zones, use a regional load balancer to distribute traffic, and use a managed database service like Cloud SQL with high availability (which replicates across zones). A single zone cannot survive failure. Cloud CDN is for static content, not for zone failure resilience. Preemptible VMs are not suitable for stateful applications.
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 a managed database service with automatic failover across zones (e.g., Cloud SQL High Availability)
Why this is correct
A managed database service like Cloud SQL High Availability writes data synchronously to a primary and standby instance in different zones within the same region. In the event of a zonal outage or instance failure, the service automatically promotes the standby to primary, preserving data durability and maintaining application availability without manual intervention.
- ✗
Use a single zone to keep data consistent
Why it's wrong here
Pinning application and database resources to a single zone makes the entire stack vulnerable to a single zonal outage, which can take down compute, storage, and networking together. Consistency does not require a single zone because synchronous replication across zones can provide the same strong consistency guarantees while eliminating the single point of failure.
- ✓
Use a global HTTP(S) load balancer with the backend configured as a regional (multi-zone) instance group
Why this is correct
A global HTTP(S) load balancer uses an anycast IP and routes user requests to a backend service that references a regional managed instance group, spreading traffic across available zones. It actively performs health checks on instances and automatically stops sending traffic to unhealthy zones, allowing the application to survive zonal outages while providing a single global entry point.
- ✗
Use preemptible VMs to reduce costs
Why it's wrong here
Preemptible VMs operate at a lower cost, but Compute Engine can terminate them at any time within 24 hours due to capacity reclaim, offering no live migration or committed availability. Running a user-facing web application's stateful backend on preemptible VMs risks sudden data loss and disconnection, so they are unsuitable for this always-on global workload.
- ✓
Deploy Compute Engine instances across multiple zones within a region
Why this is correct
Deploying Compute Engine instances across multiple zones within a region, typically via a managed instance group, ensures that if one zone experiences failure or maintenance, the remaining zones continue to serve traffic. Autoscalers can replace failed instances in other zones, and combining this with a load balancer provides automatic traffic steering away from impaired zonal instances.
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Cloud Digital Transformation
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
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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Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
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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.