Google PCA Manage implementation of cloud architecture Practice Question
An organization has a multi-regional deployment of a stateful application on GKE using regional persistent disks. They need to implement disaster recovery with an RPO of less than 1 hour and RTO of 30 minutes. What is the most cost-effective approach?
⚠ Common exam trap
Watch out — candidates often confuse the cost-effectiveness of snapshots (Option A) with the need for low RPO/RTO, overlooking that snapshot-based recovery cannot meet sub-hour RTOs due to restore times, while regional persistent disk replication provides near-continuous replication at a lower total cost than third-party tools.
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 regional persistent disks with asynchronous replication to a secondary region and deploy GKE clusters in both regions with a load balancer directing traffic.
Regional persistent disks with asynchronous replication provide built-in, managed replication to a secondary region, meeting the RPO of less than 1 hour and RTO of 30 minutes without additional infrastructure costs. By deploying GKE clusters in both regions and using a load balancer, traffic can be redirected to the secondary cluster within the RTO, making this the most cost-effective approach as it avoids third-party tools or complex manual processes.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Use zonal persistent disks and take snapshots every 45 minutes, then restore in secondary region.
Why it's wrong here
Snapshot RPO is 45 min but RTO might exceed 30 min due to restore time.
- ✓
Use regional persistent disks with asynchronous replication to a secondary region and deploy GKE clusters in both regions with a load balancer directing traffic.
Why this is correct
Regional pd already replicates within zone; adding asynchronous cross-region replication meets RPO/RTO.
- ✗
Use a third-party replication tool to asynchronously replicate data to the secondary region.
Why it's wrong here
This adds complexity and cost, and is not as integrated as native replication.
- ✗
Use Cloud Storage FUSE to write state to a multi-regional bucket and read from secondary cluster.
Why it's wrong here
Not suitable for stateful databases due to consistency and performance.
Go deeper
Related to this question
Learn chapter
Google Cloud Resource Hierarchy and Organization
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.
Key term
RTO
Recovery Time Objective is the maximum acceptable time to restore a system or data after a disaster, defining how quickly normal operations must resume.
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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.