easyMultiple ChoiceObjective-mapped
Cloud Digital Leader Practice Question: A small business wants to host a low-traffic…
A small business wants to host a low-traffic website with a single-page application. They have limited budget and no IT staff. Which Google Cloud solution is most cost-effective and easy to manage?
⚠ Common exam trap
Many exam-takers assume a web server (Compute Engine) or a platform like App Engine is necessary for any website, overlooking that static hosting on Cloud Storage with CDN is the simplest and cheapest option for single-page applications.
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
✓
Host the static files on Cloud Storage and use Cloud CDN
Hosting static files (HTML, CSS, JS) on Cloud Storage with Cloud CDN provides a serverless, highly scalable, and low-cost solution for a low-traffic single-page application. Cloud Storage serves static content directly without provisioning any virtual machines, and Cloud CDN caches content at edge locations to reduce latency and egress costs. This eliminates the need for any server management, making it ideal for a business with no IT staff.
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 App Engine Standard Environment
Why it's wrong here
Although App Engine Standard is fully managed, it is a PaaS solution designed for dynamic web applications; it requires an application runtime (e.g., Python, Go) and incurs instance costs even for low traffic. Serving purely static content through App Engine is less cost-effective than Cloud Storage because you pay for instance uptime rather than storage and egress only.
- ✗
Deploy a virtual machine on Compute Engine with a web server
Why it's wrong here
A Compute Engine virtual machine forces you to provision and maintain a full OS, apply security patches, and run a web server such as Nginx or Apache. The VM must stay powered on (or you'll face cold-start delays), and you pay for vCPU, memory, and persistent disk regardless of actual traffic, making it more complex and expensive than a serverless static hosting option.
- ✓
Host the static files on Cloud Storage and use Cloud CDN
Why this is correct
Cloud Storage hosts static files directly, supports bucket configuration for website endpoints, and can be fronted by Cloud CDN for global low-latency delivery. There are no virtual machines or application servers; you pay only for stored bytes and network egress, and the service scales seamlessly from zero to high traffic without management overhead.
- ✗
Set up Google Kubernetes Engine cluster
Why it's wrong here
Google Kubernetes Engine introduces a control plane, node pools, and container networking, all of which must be sized and managed even for a single-page application. This orchestration layer is intended for running containerized workloads with complex scaling and service discovery; for a low-traffic static website it adds unnecessary cost and operational burden with no functional benefit.
Quick reference
Cloud Service Model Comparison
| Model | You Manage | Provider Manages | Examples |
|---|---|---|---|
| IaaS | OS, runtime, apps, data | Hardware, hypervisor, networking | EC2, Azure VMs, GCP Compute Engine |
| PaaS | Apps and data | OS, runtime, middleware, hardware | Elastic Beanstalk, Azure App Service |
| SaaS | Data and settings only | Everything else | Microsoft 365, Salesforce, Workday |
| FaaS / Serverless | Function code only | Infra, scaling, runtime | Lambda, Azure Functions, Cloud Run |
| CaaS | Containers and apps | Kubernetes, OS, hardware | EKS, AKS, GKE |
Go deeper
Related to this question
Learn chapter
Cloud Digital Transformation
Key term
Cloud storage
Cloud storage is a service that lets you save data on remote servers accessed over the internet instead of on your computer's hard drive.
Key term
Google Cloud
Google Cloud is a suite of cloud computing services offered by Google that provides infrastructure, platform, and software solutions over the internet.
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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.