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Cloud Digital Leader Practice Question: A hospital runs a patient records system that…
A hospital runs a patient records system that must remain on-premises due to strict regulatory data residency requirements. However, they also want to use cloud-based AI for diagnostic imaging analysis. Which cloud deployment model best describes their architecture?
⚠ Common exam trap
The GCDL exam often tests the misconception that 'hybrid cloud' requires equal distribution of workloads, but the trap here is that candidates may confuse 'multi-cloud' (multiple public providers) with 'hybrid cloud' (private + public), failing to recognize that on-premises infrastructure is a key component of hybrid cloud.
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
✓
Hybrid cloud — combining on-premises infrastructure with public cloud services.
The hospital must keep patient records on-premises to comply with data residency regulations, but wants to leverage cloud-based AI for diagnostic imaging. A hybrid cloud model combines on-premises infrastructure (for sensitive data) with public cloud services (for AI processing), allowing data to remain resident while compute-intensive tasks are offloaded. This matches the scenario exactly, as hybrid cloud enables workload distribution across private and public environments.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Public cloud — all workloads run in a provider's infrastructure.
Why it's wrong here
Public cloud deployment means every workload—compute, storage, networking, and applications—runs exclusively in the cloud provider's data centers. The hospital in this scenario keeps patient records on-premises, likely due to data-residency or regulatory requirements, so moving all workloads to the public cloud would violate those constraints. Because a portion of the infrastructure remains on-premises, this does not satisfy the definition of a pure public cloud model.
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Private cloud — all workloads run in the hospital's own infrastructure.
Why it's wrong here
A private cloud is a cloud-computing model in which all infrastructure and services are dedicated to a single organization, typically hosted in that organization's own data center or by a third party exclusively for that customer. While the hospital's patient records remain on-premises, it also consumes Google Cloud's AI services, which run in Google's multi-tenant public cloud. This mix of private infrastructure and external cloud services is the antithesis of a pure private cloud and directly aligns with hybrid cloud.
- ✓
Hybrid cloud — combining on-premises infrastructure with public cloud services.
Why this is correct
Hybrid cloud is a computing environment that connects an organization's on-premises infrastructure—such as a hospital's data center holding patient records—with a public cloud provider like Google Cloud, enabling data and workloads to move between them. For regulated industries like healthcare, this pattern allows sensitive data to remain on-premises for compliance and security while leveraging public cloud capabilities like AI-based imaging analysis for workloads that can be processed off-premises. The seamless orchestration across these two domains is the textbook definition of hybrid cloud.
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Multi-cloud — using multiple public cloud providers simultaneously.
Why it's wrong here
Multi-cloud architecture deliberately uses two or more distinct public cloud platform providers—such as Google Cloud plus AWS or Azure—to avoid vendor lock-in or to leverage each provider's unique services. The scenario describes a single public cloud provider (Google Cloud's AI imaging analysis) combined with the hospital's own data center; it does not involve multiple public clouds. The defining feature is the on-premises component, which multi-cloud does not address, making hybrid cloud the correct categorization.
Go deeper
Related to this question
Learn chapter
Hybrid and Multi-Cloud Strategy
Key term
Data
Data is raw, unprocessed information, like numbers, words, or measurements, that can be stored, processed, and analyzed by computers.
Key term
Hybrid cloud
A hybrid cloud is a computing environment that combines a private cloud (on-premises infrastructure) with one or more public cloud services, allowing data and applications to be shared between them.
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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.