Google PCA Practice Question: Managing and Provisioning a Solution Infrastructure
A global logistics company runs a three-tier application on Compute Engine in a single region. The database tier must survive the loss of an entire zone without data loss, and the application tier must continue serving traffic with minimal disruption during a zonal failure. The architect wants the smallest operational change that satisfies both requirements. Which design should the architect implement?
⚠ Common exam trap
The trap here is treating backups, point-in-time recovery, or an asynchronous read replica as equivalent to synchronous high availability for a no-data-loss requirement.
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
✓
Deploy the application tier in a regional managed instance group across three zones and move the database to a Cloud SQL for PostgreSQL instance with high availability enabled.
A regional managed instance group spreads application instances across zones and self-heals when a zone fails, while Cloud SQL high availability keeps a synchronized standby in another zone and fails over automatically without losing committed transactions. That pairing satisfies both continuity and durability with minimal change to the existing three-tier design.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✓
Deploy the application tier in a regional managed instance group across three zones and move the database to a Cloud SQL for PostgreSQL instance with high availability enabled.
Why this is correct
A regional managed instance group distributes application instances across zones and replaces failed members automatically, so a zonal outage leaves serving capacity intact. Cloud SQL high availability maintains a standby in a different zone and fails over automatically, providing synchronous replication with no committed data loss. Together they meet both the compute continuity and database durability requirements with minimal re-architecture of the existing three-tier application.
- ✗
Deploy the application tier in a zonal managed instance group and replicate the database to a read replica in a second zone using asynchronous replication.
Why it's wrong here
The zonal managed instance group still concentrates application capacity in one zone, so a zonal outage removes serving capacity. Asynchronous replication to a read replica introduces replication lag, meaning recent committed transactions can be lost during a failover. Neither layer satisfies the stated requirements of surviving a zone loss without data loss and continuing to serve traffic with minimal disruption.
- ✗
Deploy the application tier in a regional managed instance group across three zones and keep the database on a single-zone Cloud SQL instance with daily automated backups.
Why it's wrong here
The regional managed instance group correctly protects the application tier, but a single-zone Cloud SQL instance becomes unavailable if its zone fails, and daily backups cannot meet a no-data-loss requirement because all writes since the last backup would be lost. The database tier therefore fails the durability objective, making this combination insufficient despite the sound application tier design.
- ✗
Deploy the application tier in a zonal managed instance group and configure Cloud SQL with automated backups and point-in-time recovery enabled.
Why it's wrong here
A zonal managed instance group places all instances in one zone, so losing that zone takes down the entire application tier. Backups and point-in-time recovery restore data after a failure but do not eliminate data loss for writes made after the last recoverable point, and recovery takes time. This design addresses neither the required application continuity nor the no-data-loss guarantee during a zonal failure.
Go deeper
Related to this question
Learn chapter
Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE)
Key term
High availability
High availability is a system design approach that aims to keep applications and services operational and accessible with minimal downtime, even when some components fail.
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.
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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
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