easyMultiple ChoiceObjective-mapped
PCD Practice Question: A company deploys a microservices application on…
A company deploys a microservices application on Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE). The operations team needs to monitor API latency between services. Which Google Cloud service should they use to trace requests across services?
⚠ Common exam trap
It's easy for candidates to confuse Cloud Monitoring (metrics) with Cloud Trace (distributed tracing), assuming that latency metrics alone can trace requests across services, but metrics lack the span-level context needed to follow a single request's path.
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
✓
Cloud Trace
Cloud Trace is the correct choice because it is a distributed tracing system designed to capture latency data as requests propagate through microservices. It provides end-to-end visibility by collecting trace spans from each service, allowing the operations team to identify bottlenecks and measure API latency between services in a GKE environment.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Error Reporting
Why it's wrong here
Error Reporting aggregates and tracks errors, not latency.
- ✗
Cloud Logging
Why it's wrong here
Cloud Logging is for storing and querying logs, not tracing requests.
- ✗
Cloud Monitoring
Why it's wrong here
Cloud Monitoring provides metrics and dashboards, not distributed tracing.
- ✓
Cloud Trace
Why this is correct
Cloud Trace provides distributed tracing to analyze latency across services.
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JA
Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
This PCD 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 PCD exam.