Google PCA Practice Question: Analysing and Optimising Technical and Business Processes
Your organization runs a critical application on Compute Engine. The monthly bill shows sustained use discounts but the finance team wants to reduce costs further. The workload runs 24/7 with predictable usage for at least the next 12 months. You need to achieve the maximum possible discount without affecting performance or availability. What should you do?
⚠ Common exam trap
The trap here is assuming that preemptible VMs are always the cheapest option, but they are unsuitable for critical always-on workloads because they can be terminated.
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
✓
Purchase a 1-year commitment for the specific vCPU and memory machine types used.
Committed use discounts offer substantial savings for predictable workloads. Because the application runs continuously for at least a year, committing to the specific resources ensures the highest discount without impacting performance or availability. Other options either compromise reliability or do not provide additional savings beyond existing discounts.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Switch all instances to preemptible VMs to get the largest discount.
Why it's wrong here
Preemptible VMs are significantly cheaper but can be terminated at any time, which would affect availability and performance of a critical 24/7 application. They are suitable for fault-tolerant, batch, or stateless workloads, not for a critical always-on service. Therefore, this option fails to meet the requirement of not affecting performance or availability.
- ✗
Enable automatic sustained use discounts by ensuring instances run for the full month.
Why it's wrong here
Sustained use discounts are already applied automatically when instances run for a significant portion of the month. The scenario states that the bill already shows sustained use discounts, so enabling them further would not yield additional savings. This option does not provide the maximum possible discount beyond what is already in place.
- ✗
Migrate the workload to a managed instance group with autoscaling.
Why it's wrong here
Autoscaling can reduce costs by adjusting capacity to demand, but for a 24/7 predictable workload, it may not lead to significant savings and could introduce scaling delays that affect performance. It does not provide the deep discounts available through committed use. This option does not achieve the maximum discount goal.
- ✓
Purchase a 1-year commitment for the specific vCPU and memory machine types used.
Why this is correct
Committed use discounts (CUDs) provide up to 57% discount for a 1-year commitment on Compute Engine resources. Since the workload is predictable and runs 24/7 for at least 12 months, purchasing a commitment for the exact resources used is the most cost-effective option. It does not affect performance or availability because the resources remain dedicated to your project.
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
Compute Engine
Compute Engine is Google Cloud's Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) offering that lets you create and run virtual machines on Google's infrastructure.
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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.