The best approach is to create a managed instance group with instances in multiple zones, as this configuration provides automatic recovery from zone failure by distributing your Compute Engine instances across availability zones. When one zone goes down, the multi-zone managed instance group leverages auto-healing to recreate failed instances in healthy zones, while the load balancer seamlessly routes traffic away from the failed zone to the remaining healthy instances, ensuring high availability without manual intervention. On the Google Professional Cloud Architect exam, this scenario tests your understanding of regional versus zonal resources and the difference between managed instance groups and unmanaged groups—a common trap is choosing a single-zone MIG with a snapshot schedule, which only protects against data loss, not zone failure. Remember the memory tip: “Multi-zone MIG for zone wig; single-zone MIG for disk gig.”
Google PCA Manage and provision cloud infrastructure Practice Question
This PCA practice question tests your understanding of manage and provision cloud infrastructure. Read the scenario carefully and evaluate each option against the stated constraints before committing to an answer. After answering, compare your reasoning against the explanation and wrong-answer breakdown below. Once you have made your selection, read the full explanation to reinforce the concept and understand why each distractor is designed to mislead on exam day.
A company is deploying a new application on Compute Engine. They need to ensure that the application can automatically recover from a zone failure. What is the best approach?
Clue words in this question
Noticing these words before you look at the options changes how you read each choice.
Clue: "best"
Why it matters: Signals that multiple options may be partially correct. Choose the option that most directly solves the exact problem described, not the one that sounds most complete.
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
✓
Create a managed instance group with instances in multiple zones.
A managed instance group (MIG) with instances in multiple zones provides automatic recovery from a zone failure by distributing instances across zones and using auto-healing to recreate failed instances. If one zone becomes unavailable, the load balancer routes traffic to healthy instances in other zones, ensuring high availability without manual intervention.
Key principle: Answer the scenario, not the keyword: identify the specific constraint before choosing the most familiar-sounding option.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
✓
Create a managed instance group with instances in multiple zones.
Why this is correct
MIG auto-heals and distributes across zones.
Clue confirmation
The clue word "best" in the question point toward this answer.
Related concept
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
✗
Use a global load balancer in front of a single instance.
Why it's wrong here
Global load balancing does not handle zone failure recovery.
✗
Create a single VM in a single zone and rely on live migration.
Why it's wrong here
Live migration handles maintenance, not zone failure.
✗
Use Cloud Storage to store application state and restore from a snapshot.
Why it's wrong here
Snapshots are for data recovery, not instance recovery.
Common exam traps
Common exam trap: answer the scenario, not the keyword
Google Cloud often tests the distinction between live migration (which handles host maintenance but not zone failures) and multi-zone MIGs (which handle zone failures), leading candidates to mistakenly choose live migration as a recovery mechanism.
Detailed technical explanation
How to think about this question
A multi-zone MIG uses a regional instance template and distributes instances across zones within a region. The MIG's auto-healing relies on health checks (HTTP, HTTPS, or TCP) to detect unhealthy instances and automatically recreate them. Under the hood, the regional load balancer (e.g., external HTTPS load balancer) uses a backend service with the MIG as the backend, and health probes are sent every 5 seconds (default) with a configurable timeout and unhealthy threshold to trigger instance replacement.
KKey Concepts to Remember
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
Find the constraint that changes the correct option.
Eliminate answers that are true in general but not in this case.
TExam Day Tips
→Watch for words such as best, first, most likely and least administrative effort.
→Review why wrong options are wrong, not only why the correct option is correct.
Key takeaway
Answer the scenario, not the keyword: identify the specific constraint before choosing the most familiar-sounding option.
Real-world example
How this comes up in practice
A media company stores terabytes of video archives that are accessed once a year for audit purposes. Moving these objects to a cold storage tier (Azure Archive, S3 Glacier, or Google Nearline) costs a fraction of hot storage. Questions like this test whether you understand storage tiers, access frequency tradeoffs, and retrieval latency requirements.
Related glossary terms
Concepts from this question explained
These glossary pages explain the core terms tested in this PCA question in full detail.
Manage and provision cloud infrastructure — This question tests Manage and provision cloud infrastructure — Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer..
What is the correct answer to this question?
The correct answer is: Create a managed instance group with instances in multiple zones. — A managed instance group (MIG) with instances in multiple zones provides automatic recovery from a zone failure by distributing instances across zones and using auto-healing to recreate failed instances. If one zone becomes unavailable, the load balancer routes traffic to healthy instances in other zones, ensuring high availability without manual intervention.
What should I do if I get this PCA question wrong?
Identify which exam domain this question belongs to, review the core concept, then practise similar questions from the same domain.
Are there clue words in this question I should notice?
Yes — watch for: "best". Signals that multiple options may be partially correct. Choose the option that most directly solves the exact problem described, not the one that sounds most complete.
What is the key concept behind this question?
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
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