Cloud Digital Leader Google Cloud Products and Services Practice Question
Which Google Cloud service provides a serverless data warehouse for running SQL queries on petabyte-scale data with no need to manage infrastructure?
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
✓
BigQuery
BigQuery is a fully managed, serverless data warehouse that supports SQL queries on massive datasets.
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 SQL
Why it's wrong here
Cloud SQL provisions fixed virtual machines, so it cannot scale to petabyte datasets without manual infrastructure management. It is tempting because it genuinely runs SQL, but it targets transactional workloads — small relational databases such as a WordPress backend or legacy application store — where a managed MySQL, PostgreSQL or SQL Server instance is exactly right.
- ✗
Dataflow
Why it's wrong here
Dataflow is a managed Apache Beam runner for stream and batch pipelines, not a SQL query engine over stored tables, so it cannot serve as a data warehouse. It is tempting because it also runs serverless, and it would be the right choice for building ETL pipelines that transform and load data into BigQuery.
- ✓
BigQuery
Why this is correct
BigQuery is Google Cloud's serverless, fully managed analytics warehouse that runs ANSI SQL over petabyte-scale datasets using its Dremel engine and columnar storage, with no clusters to provision or tune. This directly satisfies the stem's no-infrastructure-management constraint.
- ✗
Pub/Sub
Why it's wrong here
Pub/Sub is a messaging service for asynchronous event ingestion and delivery, not a query engine, so it cannot execute SQL or store petabyte-scale datasets for analysis. It is tempting because it handles massive streaming volumes serverlessly, and would be the right choice for decoupling publishers from subscribers in an event-driven pipeline feeding BigQuery.
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 |
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Related to this question
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Data-Driven Decision Making in Business
Key term
Service
A service is a software component or system that performs a specific function and is available to be used by other programs or users over a network.
Key term
SQL
SQL is a standard programming language used to manage, query, and manipulate relational databases by issuing commands like SELECT, INSERT, UPDATE, and DELETE.
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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.