Design innovative, scalable, and highly available cloud database solutions →mediumMultiple ChoiceObjective-mapped
PCDE Practice Question: Design innovative, scalable, and highly available cloud database solutions
A company is planning to use Cloud Spanner for a new global application. They estimate a peak write throughput of 10,000 mutations per second. What is the minimum number of processing units (PUs) required, given that each PU supports up to 2000 mutations/second?
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
✓
5 processing units
Each PU supports 2000 mutations/second. To get 10,000 mutations/second, you need 10,000 / 2000 = 5 PUs. However, note that Spanner also requires at least 1 node (1000 PUs) for production. But the question asks for PUs based on write throughput alone.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
1 processing unit
Why it's wrong here
1 PU provides only 2000 mutations/second.
- ✓
5 processing units
Why this is correct
5 PUs provide 10,000 mutations/second.
- ✗
100 processing units
Why it's wrong here
Way too high; 100 PUs would provide 200,000 mutations/second.
- ✗
10 processing units
Why it's wrong here
10 PUs would provide 20,000 mutations/second, more than needed.
Go deeper
Related to this question
About these practice questions
One of 1,446 original PCDE practice questions on Courseiva, each with a full explanation and wrong-answer analysis — not exam dumps or protected exam content. Learn why practice questions differ from exam dumps →
JA
Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
This PCDE 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 PCDE exam.