Google PCA Manage implementation of cloud architecture Practice Question
A retail company runs a stateful batch application on a managed instance group. The application writes intermediate results to the boot disk of each VM and takes several hours to complete. The operations team wants rolling updates that replace instances with a new image, but must guarantee that no in-flight job is interrupted. Which configuration should you recommend?
⚠ Common exam trap
The trap here is thinking that proactive rolling updates plus health checks will gracefully wait for long-running work, when health checks only govern traffic serving and not job completion.
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
✓
Use stateful managed instance group configuration with a replacement policy, and set the update type to opportunistic so instances are only replaced when you deliberately delete them.
A stateful managed instance group combined with an opportunistic update gives the operations team explicit control over when each instance is replaced. Because replacements occur only when an instance is deliberately deleted or recreated, the team can wait for each batch job to finish, update the image on the template, and then replace instances one at a time without interrupting work.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Set the update type to proactive, configure a maximum surge, and rely on the managed instance group's health checks to drain connections.
Why it's wrong here
Proactive updates replace instances automatically, and health checks only determine whether an instance should receive traffic; they do not drain or pause a running batch process. A maximum surge adds capacity during rollout but does not wait for long-running jobs to finish, so in-flight work on replaced instances can still be terminated mid-execution.
- ✗
Convert the workload to a regional managed instance group and enable autoscaling based on CPU utilization during the rollout.
Why it's wrong here
Autoscaling reacts to load by adding or removing instances, and scale-in events can terminate instances running batch jobs. Making the group regional improves zone redundancy but does not change how rolling updates replace instances, so it does not by itself protect long-running stateful work from interruption during an image rollout.
- ✗
Set the update type to opportunistic and rely on the instance template's automatic restart policy.
Why it's wrong here
Opportunistic updates replace instances whenever they are recreated for other reasons, giving you no control over when a long-running batch job is interrupted. The automatic restart policy restarts processes after a failure but cannot prevent a replacement from terminating an in-flight job. Stateful batch work would be lost, so this does not meet the no-interruption guarantee.
- ✓
Use stateful managed instance group configuration with a replacement policy, and set the update type to opportunistic so instances are only replaced when you deliberately delete them.
Why this is correct
Stateful MIGs preserve per-instance names, disks, and metadata, and with an opportunistic update the group does not automatically replace instances during a rollout. You control replacement timing by deleting or recreating specific instances after their jobs complete, which guarantees no in-flight batch work is interrupted while still allowing eventual image updates.
Go deeper
Related to this question
Learn chapter
Resource Monitoring and Logging with Cloud Operations
Key term
CAN
A CAN (Controller Area Network) is a robust vehicle bus standard designed to allow microcontrollers and devices to communicate with each other without a host computer.
Key term
Instance group
An instance group is a collection of virtual machine instances that are managed as a single unit for scaling, load balancing, and lifecycle management in cloud computing.
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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.