Google PCA Manage and provision cloud infrastructure Practice Question
A developer wants to deploy a stateless web application that automatically scales based on HTTP traffic. The application should be cost-effective and require minimal configuration. Which compute option is best?
⚠ Common exam trap
Test-takers frequently confuse Cloud Run with Cloud Functions, thinking both are equivalent for web applications, but Cloud Functions is limited to event-driven triggers and cannot serve a full web app with persistent HTTP connections.
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 Run
Cloud Run is the best choice because it automatically scales to zero when idle, scales up to handle HTTP traffic spikes, and requires minimal configuration—just deploy a container. It is cost-effective as you pay only for resources used during request processing, and it supports stateless web applications natively without managing servers or clusters.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
App Engine Standard Environment
Why it's wrong here
App Engine Standard is good but may have more restrictions and higher cost.
- ✗
Cloud Functions
Why it's wrong here
Cloud Functions is for event-driven functions, not full web applications.
- ✗
Compute Engine managed instance group
Why it's wrong here
MIGs require more configuration and are not serverless.
- ✓
Cloud Run
Why this is correct
Correct. Cloud Run scales automatically and is simple to deploy.
- ✗
Google Kubernetes Engine
Why it's wrong here
GKE requires cluster management, even if it can scale.
Go deeper
Related to this question
Learn chapter
Security Best Practices and Compliance
Key term
Cloud Run
Cloud Run is a fully managed compute platform from Google Cloud that lets you run containerized applications in a serverless environment, automatically scaling from zero to thousands of requests.
Key term
HTTP
HTTP stands for Hypertext Transfer Protocol, the set of rules web browsers and servers use to communicate and transfer web pages over the internet.
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JA
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.