Cloud Digital Leader Google Cloud Products and Services Practice Question
An engineer needs to distribute incoming HTTP traffic across multiple backend VM instances in different regions, with automatic failover and SSL termination. Which load balancing product should they use?
⚠ Common exam trap
Candidates often confuse adjacent networking services — candidates pick Cloud CDN or Cloud Armor because they sound like traffic services, but only Cloud Load Balancing actually distributes and terminates traffic.
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 Load Balancing
Cloud Load Balancing is Google Cloud's fully managed, software-defined load balancing service that supports global anycast IPs, cross-region backend distribution, automatic failover via health checks, and SSL/TLS termination at the load balancer. It handles HTTP(S) traffic across VM instances in multiple regions with a single global IP, which matches every requirement in the scenario.
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 CDN
Why it's wrong here
Cloud CDN is incorrect because it is a content delivery network that caches static and dynamic content at edge locations to reduce latency and accelerate delivery, not a traffic distribution service. While Cloud CDN can be attached to a load balancer to offload cached responses, it does not route incoming HTTP traffic across multiple backend instances or regions, nor does it perform health checks or connection draining. Its core function is caching, not load balancing.
- ✓
Cloud Load Balancing
Why this is correct
Cloud Load Balancing is the correct choice for distributing incoming HTTP traffic across backend instances or services. It provides global, anycast-based HTTP(S) load balancing with a single virtual IP, enabling traffic to be routed to the nearest healthy backend across regions. It also offers SSL/TLS offloading, autoscaling, health checks, and failover, making it the appropriate service for high-availability traffic distribution.
- ✗
Cloud NAT
Why it's wrong here
Cloud NAT is incorrect because it is designed to provide outbound internet connectivity to private VM instances that do not have external IP addresses. It performs source network address translation, allowing private instances to initiate outbound connections, but it cannot accept inbound HTTP traffic or route it to different backends. Therefore, it is not a load-balancing solution for incoming requests.
- ✗
Cloud Armor
Why it's wrong here
Cloud Armor is incorrect because it is a security service that provides DDoS protection and a web application firewall (WAF) to filter and block malicious traffic. It can be attached to an HTTP(S) load balancer to enforce security policies, but it does not distribute traffic across servers or manage backend capacity. Its role is to protect, not to route or balance load, so it is not a load balancer itself.
Go deeper
Related to this question
Learn chapter
Private Service Connect and Private Access
Key term
Transport Layer Security
Transport Layer Security (TLS) is a cryptographic protocol that provides secure, encrypted communication between two devices over a network, such as between a web browser and a server.
Key term
Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure
Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure, or HTTPS, is the secure version of HTTP that encrypts data between a web browser and a website using SSL/TLS to protect sensitive information like passwords and credit card numbers.
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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.