Google PCA Manage and provision cloud infrastructure Practice Question
A developer wants to store and retrieve non-relational data with flexible schema and automatic scaling. Which Google Cloud service should they use?
⚠ Common exam trap
Google Cloud often tests the distinction between NoSQL databases by presenting Cloud Bigtable as a trap for 'non-relational' requirements, but candidates overlook that Bigtable is optimized for analytical workloads with fixed column families, not for flexible schema and automatic scaling in transactional applications.
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
✓
Firestore.
Firestore is a NoSQL document database that supports flexible schema and automatic scaling, making it ideal for non-relational data. It offers real-time synchronization, offline support, and serverless scaling, which aligns with the requirement for storing and retrieving data without manual sharding or capacity planning.
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 Bigtable.
Why it's wrong here
Bigtable is for time-series and analytical data.
- ✗
Cloud SQL.
Why it's wrong here
Cloud SQL is relational.
- ✓
Firestore.
Why this is correct
Firestore is NoSQL with flexible schema and auto-scaling.
- ✗
Cloud Spanner.
Why it's wrong here
Spanner is relational.
Quick reference
Cloud Service Model Comparison
| Model | You Manage | Provider Manages | Examples |
|---|---|---|---|
| IaaS | OS, runtime, apps, data | Hardware, hypervisor, networking | EC2, Azure VMs, GCP Compute Engine |
| PaaS | Apps and data | OS, runtime, middleware, hardware | Elastic Beanstalk, Azure App Service |
| SaaS | Data and settings only | Everything else | Microsoft 365, Salesforce, Workday |
| FaaS / Serverless | Function code only | Infra, scaling, runtime | Lambda, Azure Functions, Cloud Run |
| CaaS | Containers and apps | Kubernetes, OS, hardware | EKS, AKS, GKE |
Go deeper
Related to this question
Learn chapter
Introduction to Google Cloud Platform
Key term
Data
Data is raw, unprocessed information, like numbers, words, or measurements, that can be stored, processed, and analyzed by computers.
Key term
Network Time Protocol
Network Time Protocol (NTP) is a networking protocol that synchronizes the clocks of computers and devices over a network to a common reference time source, typically Coordinated Universal Time (UTC).
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