Google PCA Practice Question: Analysing and Optimising Technical and Business Processes
Your organization runs a microservices application on Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE). Each microservice has its own deployment and horizontal pod autoscaler. You want to implement a robust cost governance process that provides chargeback to each team and prevents budget overruns. You need to attribute costs accurately without modifying application code. What should you do?
⚠ Common exam trap
The trap here is thinking that resource quotas or separate clusters solve cost attribution, when they actually address consumption limits or isolation, not chargeback.
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
✓
Enable GKE cost allocation and use labels on namespaces to map costs to teams.
GKE cost allocation is designed to break down cluster costs by namespace and label, enabling accurate chargeback without code changes. By labeling namespaces with team identifiers, you can generate reports and budget alerts per team. Other options either increase cost, do not provide attribution, or require additional tooling.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Deploy a third-party cost monitoring agent as a DaemonSet on each node.
Why it's wrong here
A third-party agent may provide visibility but adds operational complexity and may require application or node-level changes. It does not natively integrate with Google Cloud billing for chargeback. GKE cost allocation is the native, supported method that requires no additional agents and integrates directly with Cloud Billing labels.
- ✓
Enable GKE cost allocation and use labels on namespaces to map costs to teams.
Why this is correct
GKE cost allocation uses a combination of resource requests and actual usage to distribute cluster costs to namespaces, and you can apply labels to namespaces for team attribution. This requires no application changes and provides accurate chargeback data in Cloud Billing. It also supports budget alerts by label, enabling proactive governance.
- ✗
Create a separate GKE cluster for each team and enable billing export to BigQuery.
Why it's wrong here
Separate clusters increase management overhead and reduce resource efficiency, as each cluster has its own control plane cost and cannot share idle capacity. While billing export provides raw data, it does not automatically attribute shared cluster costs to teams. This approach is costly and does not meet the goal of accurate chargeback without code changes.
- ✗
Use Kubernetes resource quotas and limit ranges to enforce budgets.
Why it's wrong here
ResourceQuotas and LimitRanges control resource consumption within a namespace but do not provide cost attribution or chargeback reporting. They can prevent overconsumption but do not map costs to teams. The requirement is to attribute costs accurately, which requires cost allocation and labeling, not just quota enforcement.
Go deeper
Related to this question
Learn chapter
Google Cloud Compute Options Overview
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
GKE
GKE is Google's managed Kubernetes service that automates deploying, scaling, and managing containerized applications in the cloud.
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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.