Cloud Digital Leader Why cloud technology is transforming business Practice Question
When a company moves from maintaining its own data center to using Google Cloud, which operational responsibility does Google assume that the company previously managed?
⚠ Common exam trap
The GCDL exam often tests the shared responsibility model by making candidates confuse which responsibilities shift to the cloud provider versus those that remain with the customer, especially by implying that the provider handles all security or data management tasks, when in fact the customer retains control over access, data, and application logic.
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
✓
Physical hardware maintenance, data center facilities, and network equipment management
When a company migrates from an on-premises data center to Google Cloud, Google assumes responsibility for the physical infrastructure, including hardware maintenance, facility management (power, cooling, security), and network equipment. This is the core of the cloud provider's shared responsibility model, where the provider manages the 'cloud' while the customer manages what is 'in' the cloud. Option B correctly identifies these operational responsibilities that shift to Google.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Writing and maintaining application code
Why it's wrong here
Even when applications run on Google Cloud, the customer remains accountable for writing, building, and patching the application code itself. Google Cloud provides compute, container orchestration, or serverless runtimes, but the software logic, its static assets, and the CI/CD pipelines that produce deployable artifacts are entirely controlled by the customer. Code-level vulnerabilities, feature dependencies, and runtime performance tuning are customer obligations under the shared responsibility model.
- ✓
Physical hardware maintenance, data center facilities, and network equipment management
Why this is correct
Google assumes full ownership of the physical layer in its data centers, including server hardware, rack layout, cooling systems, electrical power, and networking equipment. The company also manages physical access controls, biometric security, and on-site staff. For a customer migrating from on-premises data centers, this burden no longer falls on their facilities and engineering teams, which is a primary cost and complexity reduction of moving to cloud.
- ✗
Defining which users can access the company's applications
Why it's wrong here
Defining application-level access control remains a customer decision in the cloud, even though Google provides IAM tools. The customer establishes user identities, assigns roles, sets customized policies, and enforces multi-factor authentication based on business requirements. Google merely offers the mechanism; it does not decide which users or groups can read, write, or administer a given application or dataset.
- ✗
Backing up the company's application data
Why it's wrong here
Data backup is a customer-owned duty in the cloud, not an implicit feature of the infrastructure. Google Cloud's regional replication protects against hardware failure, but it does not restore data after accidental deletion, corruption, or a ransomware attack. Customers must configure dedicated backup services like Backup and DR, define recovery point objectives, and regularly test restore procedures; otherwise, data loss is their responsibility.
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Related to this question
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Cloud Digital Transformation
Key term
Model
In IT and AI, a model is a trained mathematical representation that learns patterns from data to make predictions or decisions.
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.