Google PCA Practice Question: Analysing and Optimising Technical and Business Processes
A company is migrating 50 TB of on-premises file server data to Cloud Storage. The network bandwidth is limited to 100 Mbps. What is the most cost-effective and time-efficient migration method?
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
✓
Use Transfer Appliance
Transfer Appliance is Google's physical device for transferring large amounts of data when network is slow or expensive. It avoids lengthy uploads over limited bandwidth. Storage Transfer Service is for cloud-to-cloud, not on-prem. gsutil cp and rsync over 100 Mbps would take weeks.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Use gsutil cp to copy files directly
Why it's wrong here
Direct copy over 100 Mbps will take about 46 days; not efficient.
- ✗
Use gsutil rsync to synchronize
Why it's wrong here
rsync over slow network is also slow; same bandwidth limitation.
- ✓
Use Transfer Appliance
Why this is correct
Transfer Appliance is the fast, cost-effective option for large on-prem data migrations over slow networks.
- ✗
Use Storage Transfer Service
Why it's wrong here
Storage Transfer Service transfers data between cloud storage systems, not from on-prem.
Visual reference
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Related to this question
Learn chapter
Introduction to Google Cloud Platform
Key term
Transfer Appliance
A specialized hardware or virtual device used to securely and efficiently migrate large volumes of data between storage systems, often across different environments or geographic locations, without tying up production network bandwidth.
Key term
rsync
rsync is a command-line tool that synchronizes files and directories between two locations efficiently by transferring only the differences.
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JA
Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
This PCA 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 PCA exam.