Google PCA Manage and provision cloud infrastructure Practice Question
An organization has multiple projects in Google Cloud and wants to centralize logging and monitoring for all projects. They need to aggregate logs from all projects into a single project for analysis. Which approach should they use?
⚠ Common exam trap
Candidates often confuse the Stackdriver agent (which collects logs from VMs) with the logs sink feature (which routes logs from projects), leading them to choose Option C instead of the correct centralized export method.
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
✓
Create a logs sink in each project that exports logs to a BigQuery dataset in the central project.
Google Cloud's logs sink feature allows you to route logs from multiple source projects to a centralized BigQuery dataset in a single destination project. This approach aggregates logs efficiently without requiring agents or manual import steps, and it supports real-time log export for analysis.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Export logs from each project to a Cloud Storage bucket and then import them into BigQuery.
Why it's wrong here
Exporting to Cloud Storage then importing into BigQuery is a batch pipeline, not live aggregation, and it bypasses Logging's native routing. It is tempting because BigQuery suits large-scale log analysis, but the requirement is centralised ingestion across projects, which aggregated sinks into a single project deliver directly.
- ✗
Enable Cloud Audit Logs for all projects and view them from the central project.
Why it's wrong here
Enabling Cloud Audit Logs records administrative and data access activity per project, but viewing them from a central project still requires aggregated log sinks to route those entries. It is tempting because audit logs are essential for security monitoring, yet enabling them alone does not aggregate logs across projects.
- ✗
Install the Stackdriver agent on all VMs and point them to the central project.
Why it's wrong here
The Stackdriver agent collects metrics and application logs from individual VMs only, missing platform and audit logs, and it is not the mechanism for cross-project aggregation. It is tempting because agents give detailed host-level telemetry, but centralising all projects' logs requires log sinks, not per-VM agents.
- ✓
Create a logs sink in each project that exports logs to a BigQuery dataset in the central project.
Why this is correct
A logs sink in each project routes log entries to a BigQuery dataset hosted in the central project, aggregating all projects' logs for centralised analysis. This satisfies the requirement to consolidate logs into a single project without per-project querying.
Go deeper
Related to this question
Learn chapter
Google Cloud Resource Hierarchy and Organization
Key term
Organization
An Organization is a top-level container in Google Cloud that represents your company or entities and serves as the root node for all your cloud resources, policies, and access control.
Key term
Project
A project is a temporary endeavor with a defined beginning and end, undertaken to create a unique product, service, or result, managed through specific processes in IT environments.
About these practice questions
This PCA question is part of Courseiva's 807-question bank — original exam-style content with full explanations and wrong-answer analysis, never real exam questions or exam dumps. Learn why practice questions differ from exam dumps →
JA
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.