Google PCA Manage and provision cloud infrastructure Practice Question
A developer needs to deploy a containerized application on Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE) with minimal operational overhead. They want to automatically scale the number of pods based on CPU utilization. Which GKE feature should they use?
⚠ Common exam trap
Google Cloud often tests the distinction between horizontal scaling (HPA) and vertical scaling (VPA), where candidates mistakenly choose VPA when the question explicitly asks for scaling the number of pods based on CPU utilization.
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
✓
Horizontal Pod Autoscaler.
The Horizontal Pod Autoscaler (HPA) is the correct choice because it automatically scales the number of pod replicas in a GKE deployment based on observed CPU utilization (or other custom metrics). This directly meets the requirement of scaling pods with minimal operational overhead, as HPA is a native Kubernetes resource that requires no manual intervention once configured.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✓
Horizontal Pod Autoscaler.
Why this is correct
The Horizontal Pod Autoscaler adjusts the replica count of a workload based on observed CPU utilisation, satisfying the automatic scaling requirement with minimal operational overhead. It reads metrics from the metrics server and scales pods directly, unlike cluster-level node autoscaling.
- ✗
Node auto-repair.
Why it's wrong here
Node auto-repair recreates unhealthy nodes; it does not create or remove pod replicas in response to CPU load. It is tempting as an availability feature, and would be correct when nodes fail health checks and need automatic replacement to keep the cluster running.
- ✗
Vertical Pod Autoscaler.
Why it's wrong here
The Vertical Pod Autoscaler adjusts each pod's CPU and memory requests and limits, so it changes pod size rather than pod count. The Horizontal Pod Autoscaler scales replica count from CPU utilisation; VPA suits right-sizing resource requests on workloads with stable replica counts.
- ✗
Cluster Autoscaler.
Why it's wrong here
Cluster Autoscaler adjusts the number of nodes in a node pool, not pod replicas, so CPU-driven pod scaling is not performed. It is tempting because it addresses capacity, and would be correct when workloads are pending due to insufficient node resources rather than pod-level demand.
Go deeper
Related to this question
Learn chapter
Virtual Machine Instances in Compute Engine
Key term
Autoscaler
An Autoscaler is a cloud service that automatically increases or decreases the number of virtual machines (instances) or resources based on real-time demand, so your application always has enough capacity without wasting money on idle servers.
Key term
GKE
GKE is Google's managed Kubernetes service that automates deploying, scaling, and managing containerized applications in the cloud.
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