Google PCA Manage and provision cloud infrastructure Practice Question
A financial services company runs a critical application on a managed instance group (MIG) of Compute Engine instances. The application must be highly available and able to survive a zone failure without manual intervention. The company wants to ensure that the MIG automatically recovers from zone failures and maintains capacity. They also want to minimize latency for users across the United States. Which configuration should they use?
⚠ Common exam trap
Many exam-takers confuse internal and external load balancers, or assuming that a zonal MIG with a global load balancer can survive a zone failure.
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
✓
Regional MIG with autoscaling enabled and a global external HTTP(S) load balancer
A regional managed instance group distributes instances across multiple zones, ensuring that a zone failure does not take down the application. Autoscaling maintains capacity. A global external HTTP(S) load balancer uses a single anycast IP and routes traffic to the nearest healthy backend, reducing latency for users across the United States. This combination provides both high availability and low latency.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Regional MIG with autoscaling enabled and a load balancer with a single backend service
Why it's wrong here
A regional MIG distributes instances across multiple zones, which provides zone failure resilience. However, a single backend service without specifying a load balancer type may not provide global load balancing. The scenario requires minimizing latency across the US, which typically necessitates a global load balancer. This configuration lacks the global anycast IP and edge termination of a global external load balancer.
- ✓
Regional MIG with autoscaling enabled and a global external HTTP(S) load balancer
Why this is correct
A regional MIG spreads instances across multiple zones in a region, so if one zone fails, instances in other zones continue to serve traffic. Autoscaling ensures capacity is maintained. A global external HTTP(S) load balancer provides a single anycast IP and routes users to the closest healthy backend, minimizing latency across the US. This combination meets high availability and low latency requirements.
- ✗
Regional MIG with autoscaling enabled and an internal TCP/UDP load balancer
Why it's wrong here
An internal TCP/UDP load balancer is for internal traffic within a VPC, not for external users. It does not provide a public IP or global anycast, so it cannot serve users across the US. While a regional MIG provides zone redundancy, the load balancer choice is inappropriate for external, latency-sensitive traffic. This configuration would not be accessible to external users.
- ✗
Zonal MIG with autoscaling enabled and a global external HTTP(S) load balancer
Why it's wrong here
A zonal MIG confines instances to a single zone, so a zone failure would cause an outage. Autoscaling cannot compensate for a zone outage because the MIG cannot create instances in other zones. A global load balancer helps with latency but does not provide zone redundancy. This configuration fails the high availability requirement.
Go deeper
Related to this question
Learn chapter
Google Cloud Compute Options Overview
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.
Key term
Latency
Latency is the time delay between a request being sent over a network and the response being received, often measured in milliseconds.
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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.