Google PCA Practice Question: Analysing and Optimising Technical and Business Processes
A company runs a batch processing job that uses preemptible VMs. The job occasionally fails due to VM preemption. They want to improve reliability without significantly increasing cost. Which TWO actions should they take? (Choose TWO.)
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 a managed instance group with autoscaling and preemptible VMs
Using a managed instance group (MIG) with autoscaling and preemptible VMs can automatically recreate instances if preempted. Implementing a retry logic in the application to re-run failed tasks also improves reliability. Using sole-tenant nodes or adding more nodes increases cost or complexity. Switching to regular VMs increases cost.
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 a managed instance group with autoscaling and preemptible VMs
Why this is correct
MIGs can automatically replace preempted VMs, and autoscaling adds resilience. Preemptible VMs keep costs low.
- ✗
Use sole-tenant nodes to reduce risk of preemption
Why it's wrong here
Sole-tenant nodes do not protect against preemption; they isolate VMs but preemptible VMs can still be preempted.
- ✗
Switch to regular (non-preemptible) VMs
Why it's wrong here
Regular VMs are more expensive and would increase cost, contradicting the requirement not to significantly increase cost.
- ✓
Implement a retry mechanism in the job to re-run failed tasks
Why this is correct
Retry logic allows the job to recover from transient failures caused by preemption, improving reliability.
- ✗
Increase the number of preemptible VMs
Why it's wrong here
Adding more VMs increases cost and does not directly improve reliability against preemption; it only increases parallelism.
Go deeper
Related to this question
Learn chapter
Virtual Machine Instances in Compute Engine
Key term
Batch processing
Batch processing is a method of running high-volume, repetitive data jobs where a group of transactions is collected, processed together automatically, and then results are produced without real-time user interaction.
Key term
Managed instance group
A managed instance group is a collection of identical virtual machine instances that are automatically managed as a single unit to ensure high availability and scalability.
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Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
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