Cloud Digital Leader Why Cloud Technology Can Transform Business Practice Question
A media company needs to store and serve video files globally with high availability and low latency. They also need to process these videos using transcoding. Which THREE Google Cloud services should they use? (Choose 3)
⚠ Common exam trap
The trap is picking Compute Engine for transcoding because it sounds flexible; the exam expects you to recognize the Transcoder API as the purpose-built managed service and to avoid analytics services like BigQuery for media storage or delivery.
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
✓
Cloud Storage
Cloud Storage [CORRECT] is the right choice for storing the video files because it provides a highly durable, globally accessible object store with multi-regional and dual-region bucket options that support high availability for media assets. Cloud CDN [CORRECT] is correct because it caches content at Google's global edge points of presence, reducing latency when serving video files to users worldwide. Transcoder API [CORRECT] is correct because it is the managed service specifically designed to transcode video files into different formats and resolutions for playback on various devices. Compute Engine is not the best fit here because managing your own VMs for storage and transcoding adds operational overhead compared to the managed Cloud Storage and Transcoder API services. BigQuery is an analytics data warehouse and does not store or serve video files or perform transcoding, so it does not belong in this solution.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✓
Cloud Storage
Why this is correct
Cloud Storage is the correct choice because it is a managed object storage service that provides highly durable and available storage for video files. With regional and multi-regional locations, it allows media to be stored globally and served directly via HTTP/HTTPS, with options like Google Cloud CDN for edge caching. It is purpose-built for holding large binary media assets like videos, unlike compute or analytics services.
- ✗
Compute Engine
Why it's wrong here
Compute Engine provides virtual machines that require manual configuration of operating systems, storage volumes, and scaling; it is not a managed media storage or serving solution. Using VMs to store and serve video would require building and maintaining a file server, load balancers, and replication, which is operationally complex and not globally distributed by default. Therefore, it is not the appropriate managed service for this media company's core need.
- ✓
Transcoder API
Why this is correct
Transcoder API is designed to convert video files into different formats, resolutions, or encodings, which is a processing step, not a storage or serving mechanism. While it might be used to prepare videos, it does not provide a place to store the original or transcoded files, nor does it serve them to end users. Thus, it is not the answer for storing and serving video files globally, despite being a useful companion service.
- ✓
Cloud CDN
Why this is correct
Cloud CDN uses Google's global edge network to cache content close to viewers, improving performance and reducing load on the origin, but it requires an origin like Cloud Storage or Compute Engine to hold the definitive copies. It does not store the original video files persistently; it only caches copies at edge locations. So while it enhances delivery, it is not a storage service itself, making it the wrong primary answer for the company's storage-and-serve need.
- ✗
BigQuery
Why it's wrong here
BigQuery is a serverless data warehouse for analytical queries over large datasets, storing data in columnar format optimized for SQL aggregation, not binary video objects. It lacks the capability to serve video content directly to clients over HTTP, and its storage and access patterns are designed for structured data, not media files. Hence, it is entirely unsuitable for storing or serving video files.
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Related to this question
Learn chapter
Data Types and Analytics Workloads
Key term
BigQuery
BigQuery is a fully managed, serverless data warehouse on Google Cloud that lets you run fast SQL queries on massive datasets without managing any infrastructure.
Key term
Region
A region is a distinct geographic location where a cloud provider operates multiple data centers that are connected by low-latency networks and provide cloud services.
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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.