Cloud Digital Leader Scaling with Google Cloud operations Practice Question

Answer analysis

Option-by-option breakdown

For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.

• ✗

  Leave the VMs running in case they are needed for future workloads — storage costs are minimal for idle VMs

  Why it's wrong here

  Idle VMs still accrue compute costs (vCPU and memory) on a per-second basis, which typically dwarf any storage charges. Persistent disk storage is billed separately regardless of whether the VM is running, but stopping or deleting the VM can halt compute billing entirely while preserving the disks. Furthermore, re-creating a VM from a custom image or snapshot takes minutes, so keeping instances running purely 'in case' is an avoidable and often substantial recurring expense.

• ✓

  Investigate whether each VM is still needed; delete confirmed unused VMs to eliminate wasted spend, potentially saving thousands per month

  Why this is correct

  This is the correct operational response. Investigate first (some may have legitimate low-utilization purposes like DR standby), then delete confirmed waste. 15 idle VMs can represent significant ongoing cost that stops immediately upon deletion. Cloud's on-demand model means these can be re-created if needed.

• ✗

  Upgrade the idle VMs to larger machine types so they can handle future workloads if needed

  Why it's wrong here

  Upgrading idle VMs to larger machine types increases the per-hour price for each instance because compute billing scales with vCPU and memory capacity, so the waste grows immediately. Since the workload is not running, added capacity provides no performance benefit, and you would be paying for resources that no application consumes. If a future workload truly needs more power, you can create a new instance with the desired machine type or resize the existing one from a snapshot at that time.

• ✗

  Apply committed use discounts to the idle VMs to reduce their cost while keeping them available

  Why it's wrong here

  Committed use discounts require a 1-year or 3-year contract that locks in a monthly charge for the provisioned vCPUs and memory, even if the VM is later deleted. Applying such a commitment to machines with zero useful utilization simply guarantees a fixed, ongoing cost for waste, and you may forfeit the discount or pay an early-termination penalty if you try to cancel. The only way to truly reduce spend on unused resources is to deprovision them, not to discount them.

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