Google PCA Manage implementation of cloud architecture Practice Question
Your company runs a containerized microservices application on Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE) with a regional cluster. The application consists of a frontend service, a backend API service, and a background worker service that processes messages from Cloud Pub/Sub. The worker service uses a Deployment with 3 replicas. Recently, the team noticed that the worker service is frequently failing with 'ContainerCreating' errors. The error message in the pod events is: 'Failed to pull image "gcr.io/my-project/my-worker:latest": rpc error: code = DeadlineExceeded desc = context deadline exceeded'. The image is stored in Container Registry in the same project. The cluster nodes are n1-standard-2 VMs with 10 GB of disk space. The team has confirmed that the image exists and that the nodes have internet access. What is the most likely cause of the issue?
⚠ Common exam trap
Google Cloud often tests the distinction between image pull errors that are due to permissions (e.g., 'unauthorized') versus resource exhaustion (e.g., disk full), and candidates mistakenly assume internet connectivity or permissions are the issue when the error message explicitly mentions a deadline exceeded.
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
✓
The nodes have insufficient disk space to pull the new image, causing the pull to time out.
The error 'context deadline exceeded' when pulling an image indicates that the kubelet timed out while trying to download the container image. With only 10 GB of disk space on n1-standard-2 nodes, the node's disk may be nearly full, causing the image pull to stall or fail due to insufficient space to unpack the layers. This is the most likely cause because the image exists and internet access is confirmed, ruling out authentication or connectivity issues.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
The worker pods require node affinity to a specific node pool that is not configured.
Why it's wrong here
Node affinity is not required; the Deployment can schedule on any node.
- ✓
The nodes have insufficient disk space to pull the new image, causing the pull to time out.
Why this is correct
With 10 GB disk and multiple images, disk may fill up, leading to failed pulls.
- ✗
The nodes do not have the necessary permissions to access Container Registry.
Why it's wrong here
If permissions were missing, the error would be 'unauthorized' or 'access denied', not deadline exceeded.
- ✗
The cluster is a regional cluster, but the worker pods are all scheduled in the same zone, causing resource contention.
Why it's wrong here
Regional clusters distribute nodes across zones, and the error is image pull related, not resource contention.
Go deeper
Related to this question
Learn chapter
Introduction to Google Cloud Platform
Key term
Anthos
Anthos is a Google Cloud platform that lets you run applications consistently across different computing environments, like on-premises data centers and multiple public clouds.
Key term
Pub/Sub
Pub/Sub is a messaging pattern where publishers send messages without knowing who receives them, and subscribers receive only the messages they care about.
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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.