Google PCA Ensure solution and operations reliability Practice Question

A company is designing a disaster recovery plan for a Cloud SQL for PostgreSQL instance. They want to failover to a different region with minimal data loss and recovery time under 10 minutes. The database is 500 GB and experiences 2,000 write transactions per second. Which solution should they use?

⚠ Common exam trap

A common mistake is to think that Cloud SQL for PostgreSQL read replicas cannot be cross-region. In fact, Cloud SQL for PostgreSQL supports cross-region read replicas, which can be promoted to primary during failover. However, the question requires a managed cross-region replication feature, which is explicitly available as 'cross-region replica' in Cloud SQL. Option B describes a cross-region read replica, which is also possible, but the phrasing 'configure a cross-region replica instance using Cloud SQL's cross-region replication feature' in option C is more accurate to the specific managed feature. The key distinction is that Cloud SQL's cross-region replication is a specific feature designed for disaster recovery, while read replicas are primarily for read scaling and may have different promotion behavior.

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

✓

Create a cross-region read replica and promote it to primary during failover.

Both options B and C are valid solutions. Cloud SQL for PostgreSQL supports cross-region read replicas (also referred to as cross-region replicas) that are continuously updated via asynchronous replication. Promoting such a replica to a primary instance typically takes minutes, meeting the RTO under 10 minutes, while replication lag is usually a few seconds, meeting the requirement for minimal data loss. Option B explicitly describes creating a cross-region read replica and promoting it, which is a standard DR practice. Option C describes the same feature using the managed cross-region replication feature. Therefore, both are correct.

Answer analysis

Option-by-option breakdown

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

✗
Export the database daily using gsutil and import in the other region using pg_restore.
Why it's wrong here
Exporting daily and importing via pg_restore results in RPO of up to 24 hours and RTO much longer than 10 minutes due to restore time, so this does not meet the requirements.
✓
Create a cross-region read replica and promote it to primary during failover.
Why this is correct
This is correct because Cloud SQL cross-region read replicas use asynchronous replication with minimal lag, and promotion can be completed in minutes, satisfying both RPO and RTO targets.
✓
Configure a cross-region replica instance using Cloud SQL's cross-region replication feature.
Why this is correct
This is correct because it refers to the same cross-region replication feature, which meets the disaster recovery requirements.
✗
Automated backups with point-in-time recovery to a new instance in the other region.
Why it's wrong here
Automated backups with point-in-time recovery require restoring a backup to a new instance, which can take longer than 10 minutes for a 500 GB database, and RPO depends on backup frequency, typically 1-7 days, so it does not meet the requirements.

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Last reviewed: Jun 30, 2026

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