Cloud Digital Leader Fundamental Cloud Concepts Practice Question
A retail company wants to reduce latency for customers in Europe and Asia by hosting their application closer to users. They also need high availability in case of a regional outage. Which TWO actions should they take?
⚠ Common exam trap
GCDL often tests the misconception that a single region with multiple zones or a CDN alone can provide both low latency for global users and high availability against regional outages, when in fact multiple regions and a global load balancer are required.
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
✓
Deploy the application in multiple regions
Option A (Deploy the application in multiple regions) is correct because placing application instances in multiple geographic regions is the only way to actually host the application closer to users in both Europe and Asia, directly reducing latency for each user population. Option D (Configure a global load balancer) is correct because a global load balancer (such as a Google Cloud global external HTTP(S) load balancer with a single anycast IP) routes each user to the nearest healthy regional backend and automatically fails over to another region during a regional outage, satisfying the high-availability requirement. Option B (single region with multiple zones) does not belong because multiple zones protect only against zonal failures within one region, not a full regional outage, and it cannot bring the application closer to both Europe and Asia. Option C (Cloud CDN) does not belong because caching static content reduces latency for cacheable assets but does not by itself provide multi-region application hosting or regional failover for dynamic workloads. Option E (increase machine size in a single zone) does not belong because vertical scaling in one zone neither reduces geographic latency nor provides resilience against a regional outage.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✓
Deploy the application in multiple regions
Why this is correct
Running the application in multiple GCP regions, such as europe-west1 and europe-west4, places compute capacity near EU users, cutting round-trip time. It also enables active-active or active-passive failover, so if one region fails traffic can be served from another, improving availability.
- ✗
Use a single region with multiple zones
Why it's wrong here
A single regional deployment with multiple zones only protects against zonal failures, not regional outages. For EU latency, the region may still be distant from some users, and if the entire region experiences an outage the application becomes unavailable. This option does not address cross-region latency or regional disaster recovery.
- ✗
Enable Cloud CDN on the application
Why it's wrong here
Cloud CDN caches static content at Google's edge PoPs, reducing latency for repeated static asset requests, but it does not affect dynamic application compute or provide failover. If the backend region fails, the CDN may serve stale cached content but cannot serve new dynamic requests. It is complementary to, not a substitute for, regional deployment or a global load balancer.
- ✓
Configure a global load balancer
Why this is correct
A global load balancer (e.g., Google Cloud HTTP(S) Load Balancing) uses anycast to route each user to the closest healthy backend region, thus reducing latency and automatically redirecting traffic away from unhealthy instances. It also enables traffic management like a single global anycast IP and health checking. However, it requires backend instances in multiple regions; the load balancer itself does not host compute, so it complements a multi-region deployment.
- ✗
Increase machine size in a single zone
Why it's wrong here
Increasing machine size in a single zone only scales vertical capacity, which does not reduce network latency for geographically distributed users or improve availability. It leaves the application vulnerable to zonal and regional failures and does not move compute closer to EU users. This is a capacity optimization, not a latency or resilience solution.
Go deeper
Related to this question
Learn chapter
Building a Cloud ROI Business Case
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.
Key term
Zonal
Zonal refers to the practice of grouping computing resources within a single geographic area to improve fault isolation, reduce latency, and meet compliance requirements.
About these practice questions
Courseiva writes every GCDL question from scratch — 848 in total, each with an explanation and a wrong-answer breakdown. None are copied from real exams or dumps. Learn why practice questions differ from exam dumps →
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.