Google PCA Design and plan a cloud solution architecture Practice Question
A media company is designing a new content delivery architecture on Google Cloud. Users worldwide download large video files, and the company wants to serve them from a global edge cache while keeping the origin bucket private. They also want to reduce egress cost by caching at the edge. Which Google Cloud service should you recommend as the front end for this architecture?
⚠ Common exam trap
The trap here is assuming that a multi-region Cloud Storage bucket alone provides edge caching for global users.
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 CDN with a global external Application Load Balancer and a Cloud Storage backend bucket.
Cloud CDN integrated with a global external Application Load Balancer and a Cloud Storage backend bucket delivers content from Google's global edge, cutting latency for worldwide users and reducing origin egress by serving cached responses. The bucket stays private because only the load balancer's service account is granted read access, so the architecture meets both the caching and privacy requirements.
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 CDN with a global external Application Load Balancer and a Cloud Storage backend bucket.
Why this is correct
Cloud CDN caches content at Google's globally distributed edge points of presence, reducing latency for worldwide users and offloading repeated requests from the origin. A global external Application Load Balancer can front a Cloud Storage bucket as a backend, and the bucket can remain private because only the load balancer's service account needs read access. This directly meets the global edge caching and cost-reduction goals.
- ✗
A regional external Application Load Balancer in front of a Managed Instance Group that serves the video files from local SSD.
Why it's wrong here
A regional load balancer distributes traffic only within one region and does not provide a global edge cache. Serving files from a MIG with local SSD requires managing compute instances and storage, which is more expensive and operationally complex than a Cloud Storage backend, and it does not reduce egress through caching. This fails the global edge and cost goals.
- ✗
Cloud Storage with a multi-region bucket and signed URLs generated per user request.
Why it's wrong here
A multi-region bucket improves durability and availability but does not provide an edge cache; every request still goes to the bucket's location. Signed URLs grant time-limited access but do not cache content at the edge, so egress and latency for repeated downloads are not reduced. This design does not meet the global edge caching requirement.
- ✗
Cloud Interconnect between the company's data center and a Google Cloud region, with the bucket served from that region.
Why it's wrong here
Cloud Interconnect provides dedicated private connectivity between on-premises networks and Google Cloud, which is irrelevant for worldwide end users downloading over the internet. It does not cache content at the edge or reduce egress cost for public users, and it ties delivery to a single region, increasing latency for distant users. This does not solve the global delivery problem.
Go deeper
Related to this question
Learn chapter
Virtual Private Cloud (VPC) Networking Basics
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.
Key term
Load balancer
A load balancer is a device or software that distributes incoming network traffic across multiple servers so no single server gets overwhelmed.
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JA
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.