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PCD Practice Question: A company uses Cloud Run for a serverless…
A company uses Cloud Run for a serverless application. They notice that cold starts are causing high latency for some requests. What is the best strategy to reduce cold starts?
⚠ Common exam trap
Many candidates confuse 'max instances' with 'min instances,' thinking that raising the upper limit will somehow pre-warm containers, when in fact it only controls the ceiling for scaling out, not the floor for keeping instances alive.
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
✓
Set a minimum number of instances to keep containers always warm
Setting a minimum number of instances ensures that Cloud Run keeps a baseline of container instances always warm and ready to serve requests. This eliminates cold starts for the first requests that hit those pre-warmed instances, directly addressing the latency issue. Cloud Run automatically scales to zero when idle, but a minimum instance setting overrides that behavior for the specified number of containers.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Increase the max instances setting
Why it's wrong here
Max instances only limits scaling, doesn't warm up instances.
- ✓
Set a minimum number of instances to keep containers always warm
Why this is correct
Min instances ensures pre-warmed containers are always ready.
- ✗
Migrate the application to Cloud Functions
Why it's wrong here
Cloud Functions also has cold starts.
- ✗
Reduce the container concurrency setting
Why it's wrong here
Lower concurrency may cause more instances but doesn't prevent cold starts.
Quick reference
Cloud Service Model Comparison
| Model | You Manage | Provider Manages | Examples |
|---|---|---|---|
| IaaS | OS, runtime, apps, data | Hardware, hypervisor, networking | EC2, Azure VMs, GCP Compute Engine |
| PaaS | Apps and data | OS, runtime, middleware, hardware | Elastic Beanstalk, Azure App Service |
| SaaS | Data and settings only | Everything else | Microsoft 365, Salesforce, Workday |
| FaaS / Serverless | Function code only | Infra, scaling, runtime | Lambda, Azure Functions, Cloud Run |
| CaaS | Containers and apps | Kubernetes, OS, hardware | EKS, AKS, GKE |
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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.