Google PCA Practice Question: Managing Implementation and Ensuring Solution and Operations Reliability
Your organization runs a critical application on Google Cloud that uses Cloud SQL for PostgreSQL. The database is in us-central1. The business requires a recovery point objective (RPO) of 5 minutes and a recovery time objective (RTO) of 1 hour in case of a regional failure. What should you do?
⚠ Common exam trap
The trap here is assuming that HA protects against regional failures, but HA only provides zonal redundancy within a region.
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
✓
Configure a cross-region read replica and promote it in case of regional failure.
A cross-region read replica asynchronously replicates data to a different region. In a regional failure, promoting the replica provides a recovery point close to the failure time (RPO within minutes) and can be done quickly (RTO under 1 hour). This is the standard solution for regional DR with Cloud SQL.
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 Cloud SQL point-in-time recovery (PITR) to restore to a specific time in another region.
Why it's wrong here
PITR allows you to restore to a specific point in time, but the restore operation creates a new instance in the same region by default. It does not provide a cross-region failover mechanism and may take longer than 1 hour for large databases. It does not meet the RTO requirement.
- ✓
Configure a cross-region read replica and promote it in case of regional failure.
Why this is correct
A cross-region read replica replicates asynchronously to another region. In a regional failure, you can promote the replica to a standalone instance. This provides an RPO of typically less than 5 minutes and an RTO of under 1 hour, meeting the requirements. It is the recommended approach for regional disaster recovery.
- ✗
Enable high availability (HA) for the Cloud SQL instance, which provides a standby in another zone.
Why it's wrong here
HA provides a standby in a different zone within the same region, but it does not protect against a regional failure. If the entire region fails, the standby is also unavailable. This does not meet the requirement for regional failure recovery with RPO 5 minutes and RTO 1 hour.
- ✗
Export the database to Cloud Storage every 5 minutes and import it into a new instance in another region during a disaster.
Why it's wrong here
Exporting every 5 minutes is operationally complex and may not complete within 5 minutes, leading to a higher RPO. Importing a large database can take longer than 1 hour, violating the RTO. This approach is not reliable for meeting strict RPO and RTO.
Go deeper
Related to this question
Learn chapter
Google Cloud Resource Hierarchy and Organization
Key term
Data
Data is raw, unprocessed information, like numbers, words, or measurements, that can be stored, processed, and analyzed by computers.
Key term
Read replica
A read replica is a copy of a database that is used only to handle read queries, taking load off the primary database.
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 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.