Google PCA Practice Question: Managing and Provisioning a Solution Infrastructure
Which GCP service should be used to automatically scale a GKE cluster's number of nodes based on pending pods?
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
✓
Cluster Autoscaler
The cluster autoscaler adjusts the number of nodes in node pools based on pod resource requests. HPA scales pods, not nodes. VPA adjusts pod resource requests. Node auto-provisioning is part of cluster autoscaler but the described functionality is cluster autoscaler.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Vertical Pod Autoscaler (VPA)
Why it's wrong here
VPA adjusts CPU/memory requests of pods, not node count.
- ✓
Cluster Autoscaler
Why this is correct
Cluster Autoscaler automatically adds or removes nodes in a node pool based on pod scheduling needs.
- ✗
Node Auto-Provisioning
Why it's wrong here
Node Auto-Provisioning is a feature of Cluster Autoscaler that creates node pools automatically, but the core functionality is still cluster autoscaler.
- ✗
Horizontal Pod Autoscaler (HPA)
Why it's wrong here
HPA scales the number of pods in a deployment, not the number of nodes.
Go deeper
Related to this question
Learn chapter
Google Cloud Resource Hierarchy and Organization
Key term
Autoscaler
An Autoscaler is a cloud service that automatically increases or decreases the number of virtual machines (instances) or resources based on real-time demand, so your application always has enough capacity without wasting money on idle servers.
Key term
Pod
A pod is the smallest deployable unit in Kubernetes, containing one or more containers that share storage, network, and a specification for how to run.
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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.