hardMultiple Choice
Google PCA Practice Question: Deploy a microservices architecture on Google…
A company wants to deploy a microservices architecture on Google Cloud. They need a service mesh to manage traffic, security, and observability across services. They also want to run workloads on both GKE and Compute Engine. Which solution should they use?
⚠ Common exam trap
PCA often tests the distinction between a service mesh (Cloud Service Mesh) and a load-balancing control plane (Traffic Director), so candidates who focus only on 'traffic management' pick Traffic Director and miss the security and observability requirements.
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
✓
Cloud Service Mesh (Anthos Service Mesh)
Cloud Service Mesh (formerly Anthos Service Mesh) is Google's managed Istio distribution that provides traffic management, mTLS security, and observability, and it explicitly supports workloads on both GKE and Compute Engine via VM enrollment. It is the only option designed for a hybrid GKE + Compute Engine service mesh. Istio OSS on GKE alone does not natively extend to Compute Engine VMs without significant custom work, and Traffic Director is a control plane for load balancing, not a full service mesh with sidecar-based security and observability.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✓
Cloud Service Mesh (Anthos Service Mesh)
Why this is correct
Cloud Service Mesh extends across GKE and Compute Engine via Anthos, satisfying the hybrid workload constraint. It provides mTLS, traffic routing and telemetry through sidecar proxies, unlike Istio self-managed or GKE-only Ingress. This unified control plane manages security and observability for both environments without per-platform tooling.
- ✗
Cloud Run for Anthos
Why it's wrong here
Cloud Run for Anthos is for serverless containers, not a service mesh.
- ✗
Istio open-source installation on GKE
Why it's wrong here
Open-source Istio requires manual management and does not natively support Compute Engine.
- ✗
Traffic Director
Why it's wrong here
Traffic Director provides load balancing for VMs but is not a full service mesh.
Go deeper
Related to this question
Learn chapter
Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE)
Key term
Compute Engine
Compute Engine is Google Cloud's Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) offering that lets you create and run virtual machines on Google's infrastructure.
Key term
Anthos
Anthos is a Google Cloud platform that lets you run applications consistently across different computing environments, like on-premises data centers and multiple public clouds.
About these practice questions
One of 807 original PCA practice questions on Courseiva, each with a full explanation and wrong-answer analysis — not exam dumps or protected exam content. Learn why practice questions differ from exam dumps →
JA
Written and reviewed by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
Last reviewed September 2026 · checked against the official Google Cloud exam blueprint
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.