Google PCA Design and plan a cloud solution architecture Practice Question
An IoT company ingests telemetry from 40,000 devices spread across three continents. The architecture team wants a single logical endpoint that automatically routes each device's writes to the nearest healthy Google Cloud region, and they want to avoid managing per-region DNS records or load-balancer IPs. Which design should the architect choose?
⚠ Common exam trap
Many exam-takers confuse the global external Application Load Balancer, which is HTTP(S)-only, with the global external proxy Network Load Balancer that handles arbitrary TCP.
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
✓
A global external proxy Network Load Balancer with a single anycast IP and a TCP proxy target proxy
The requirement is one logical anycast endpoint that terminates arbitrary TCP and picks the nearest healthy region. A global external proxy Network Load Balancer does exactly that, with SSL or TCP proxy target proxies and health-checked regional backends. Application Load Balancers are HTTP(S)-only, DNS geolocation needs per-region records, and Interconnect plus an internal passthrough load balancer cannot accept public device traffic.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
A global external Application Load Balancer with a single anycast IP fronting regional backends
Why it's wrong here
A global external Application Load Balancer provides one anycast IP and routes HTTP(S) traffic to the closest healthy backend, but it operates at Layer 7 and is designed for HTTP(S) workloads. Device telemetry typically arrives over MQTT or a custom TCP protocol on port 8883, which this load balancer does not natively proxy, so it cannot serve as the ingestion endpoint.
- ✗
Cloud Interconnect attachments from each continent into a single regional VPC with a regional internal passthrough Network Load Balancer
Why it's wrong here
Cloud Interconnect provides dedicated private connectivity from on-premises or colocation facilities, not from roaming IoT devices on public networks. A regional internal passthrough Network Load Balancer only accepts traffic from within the VPC or connected networks, so devices on the public internet could not reach it at all.
- ✗
Cloud DNS with a geolocation routing policy pointing to regional external passthrough Network Load Balancer IPs
Why it's wrong here
Cloud DNS geolocation routing can direct clients to regional IPs, but it requires the team to publish and maintain one record set per region and depends on resolver behavior that is not guaranteed to match the device's true location. This contradicts the requirement to avoid per-region records and a single logical endpoint.
- ✓
A global external proxy Network Load Balancer with a single anycast IP and a TCP proxy target proxy
Why this is correct
A global external proxy Network Load Balancer exposes one anycast IP and terminates TCP or SSL sessions at the Google edge, then routes to the closest healthy backend service. It supports arbitrary TCP ports, including MQTT over TLS on 8883, and health-checks backends across regions, giving the single logical endpoint with automatic nearest-region routing the team wants.
Visual reference
Go deeper
Related to this question
Learn chapter
Load Balancing and Autoscaling
Key term
Regional
Regional refers to a deployment strategy where cloud resources are distributed across multiple geographic areas to improve availability, reduce latency, and meet compliance requirements.
Key term
Network Load Balancer
A Network Load Balancer is a cloud service that automatically distributes incoming network traffic across multiple servers to ensure applications remain fast, available, and secure.
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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.