Google PCA Practice Question: Managing and Provisioning a Solution Infrastructure
An engineer needs to provision a GKE cluster with a node pool that uses preemptible VMs to reduce costs. Which gcloud command should they use?
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
✓
gcloud container node-pools create --preemptible
The --preemptible flag when creating a node pool makes all nodes in that pool preemptible. The other options either don't exist or are incorrect.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
gcloud container clusters update --preemptible
Why it's wrong here
Preemptibility is set at node pool creation, not cluster update.
- ✗
gcloud container clusters create --preemptible-nodes
Why it's wrong here
There is no --preemptible-nodes flag; the flag is --preemptible on the node-pool create command.
- ✗
gcloud compute instances create --preemptible
Why it's wrong here
This creates a standalone VM, not a GKE node pool.
- ✓
gcloud container node-pools create --preemptible
Why this is correct
This correctly creates a node pool with preemptible VMs.
Go deeper
Related to this question
Learn chapter
Google Cloud Compute Options Overview
Key term
Node pool
A node pool is a group of virtual machines (nodes) within a container orchestration cluster that share the same configuration, such as machine size, operating system, and scaling settings, allowing you to manage them as a single unit.
Key term
GKE
GKE is Google's managed Kubernetes service that automates deploying, scaling, and managing containerized applications in the cloud.
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Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
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.