Google PCA Design and plan a cloud solution architecture Practice Question
A company is migrating a legacy on-premises application to Google Cloud. The application has strict low-latency requirements between its components and requires stateful TCP sessions. Which TWO design decisions should the architect recommend?
⚠ Common exam trap
Candidates often confuse global load balancing (which is for external, stateless, HTTP-based traffic) with internal load balancing, and mistakenly think Cloud CDN or Cloud NAT can help with latency or stateful sessions, when they actually break TCP state or add unnecessary hops.
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 regional managed instance groups with internal load balancing.
Regional managed instance groups (MIGs) with internal load balancing are correct because they keep all compute instances within a single region, minimizing network hops and latency between components. Internal load balancing provides a single IP address for stateful TCP sessions without introducing the latency of a global proxy, and it supports session affinity (e.g., client IP affinity) to maintain stateful connections.
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 regional managed instance groups with internal load balancing.
Why this is correct
Supports session affinity and preserves source IP for stateful protocols.
- ✗
Use Cloud NAT for outbound connectivity.
Why it's wrong here
Breaks stateful TCP sessions because of source IP translation.
- ✗
Use global load balancing with Cloud CDN.
Why it's wrong here
Designed for web content, not stateful low-latency inter-component traffic.
- ✗
Use Cloud VPN for on-premises connectivity.
Why it's wrong here
Addresses on-premises connectivity, not low-latency between cloud components.
- ✓
Place all components in the same VPC network.
Why this is correct
Minimizes latency and avoids SNAT, preserving stateful sessions.
Visual reference
Go deeper
Related to this question
Learn chapter
Virtual Machine Instances in Compute Engine
Key term
Proxy
A proxy is an intermediary server that sits between a client and a destination server, forwarding requests and responses while providing security, privacy, and control.
Key term
TCP
TCP (Transmission Control Protocol) is a core internet protocol that ensures data is sent reliably and in order between devices over a network.
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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.