Cloud Digital Leader Fundamental Cloud Concepts Practice Question
A financial services company must run a legacy Windows application that requires a specific version of IIS and custom Windows patches. The company wants to minimize operational overhead but needs full control over the OS. Which Google Cloud service is most appropriate?
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
✓
Compute Engine
Compute Engine provides IaaS, allowing full control over the OS and application stack, including custom patches and configurations.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Google Kubernetes Engine
Why it's wrong here
Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE) is a container orchestration platform, not an IaaS offering. To run a legacy Windows app on GKE, you would need to first containerize it, which is often impractical for apps that depend on OS-level components like custom IIS modules or registry settings. Even with Windows node pools, GKE abstracts the underlying VM, providing limited control for installing custom patches or modifying OS configuration directly.
- ✗
App Engine Flexible Environment
Why it's wrong here
App Engine Flexible Environment can deploy custom runtimes and containers, but the platform manages the underlying VM lifecycle, abstracting away OS access. You cannot RDP into the host, install complex Windows patches, or configure IIS at the OS level because the infrastructure is fully managed. Additionally, App Engine Flexible primarily targets Linux runtimes; Windows support is limited and not designed for legacy monolithic applications that require persistent OS customization.
- ✓
Compute Engine
Why this is correct
Compute Engine is a true Infrastructure-as-a-Service offering, giving you full administrative control over a Windows Server VM. You can install custom patches, enable and configure IIS, alter registry settings, and manage the OS exactly as required by your legacy application. This is the only option that provides direct OS-level access, making it the correct choice for a lift-and-shift migration of a Windows workload that cannot be refactored.
- ✗
Cloud Run
Why it's wrong here
Cloud Run is a serverless platform that runs stateless containers and automatically scales them, completely abstracting the underlying infrastructure. It provides no OS-level access, so you cannot install Windows patches or run IIS as a full-fledged OS feature. Furthermore, Cloud Run only supports Linux containers; Windows containers are not supported, making it impossible to run a Windows legacy app in this environment.
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Related to this question
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Cloud Digital Transformation
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.
Key term
IaaS
IaaS stands for Infrastructure as a Service, which means renting virtual computing resources like servers, storage, and networking from a cloud provider instead of buying and managing physical hardware yourself.
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JA
Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
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.