Google PCA Design and plan a cloud solution architecture Practice Question
A company is migrating on-premises workloads to Google Cloud. They have a critical application that requires consistent low-latency access to a database, with read replicas in multiple regions for disaster recovery. The application is expected to grow by 10x over the next year. Which database service and configuration should the architect choose to meet these requirements?
⚠ Common exam trap
Candidates often confuse Cloud Spanner's multi-region capabilities with simpler replication options like Cloud SQL read replicas or Bigtable's eventual consistency, failing to recognize that only Spanner provides strong global consistency and horizontal scaling for transactional workloads.
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 Cloud Spanner with multi-region configuration
Cloud Spanner with a multi-region configuration is the correct choice because it provides strong global consistency, low-latency reads and writes across regions, and automatic horizontal scaling to handle a 10x growth in workload. Its multi-region replication ensures synchronous replication for disaster recovery while maintaining ACID transactions, which is critical for a database requiring consistent low-latency access.
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 Cloud Bigtable with multi-region replication
Why it's wrong here
Bigtable is a NoSQL wide-column database optimized for analytical workloads, not transactional consistency.
- ✗
Use Cloud SQL for PostgreSQL with cross-region read replicas
Why it's wrong here
Cross-region replicas are asynchronous, not strongly consistent, and may not meet latency requirements.
- ✓
Use Cloud Spanner with multi-region configuration
Why this is correct
Cloud Spanner offers global strong consistency, automatic replication, and horizontal scalability.
- ✗
Use Firestore in native mode with multi-region location
Why it's wrong here
Firestore Native mode is eventually consistent, not strongly consistent across regions.
Go deeper
Related to this question
Learn chapter
Introduction to Google Cloud Platform
Key term
Multi-region
Multi-region refers to a deployment strategy where IT resources, applications, or data are hosted in multiple geographic locations to improve availability, disaster recovery, and performance.
Key term
Cloud Spanner
Cloud Spanner is a fully managed, globally distributed relational database service from Google Cloud that combines the benefits of relational database structure with horizontal scalability and strong consistency.
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