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 needs to store and analyze semi-structured JSON logs from multiple microservices. The data is write-heavy with bursts of 100,000 writes/sec, and queries filter by service name and timestamp range. They require low operational overhead and the ability to query with SQL. Which Google Cloud database should they choose?
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
✓
BigQuery
BigQuery supports SQL queries on semi-structured JSON data and can handle high write rates via streaming inserts (up to 100,000 rows per second per project). Cloud Bigtable does not support SQL natively, Cloud SQL cannot handle the write throughput, and Firestore is limited in write capacity for this volume.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Cloud Bigtable
Why it's wrong here
Cloud Bigtable lacks native SQL query support, relying on the HBase API and key-value lookups, so it cannot satisfy the requirement to query with SQL. It is tempting because its high write throughput and low latency handle bursts of 100,000 writes/sec, making it ideal for time-series or event-logging workloads where queries are limited to row-key scans rather than SQL filtering.
- ✓
BigQuery
Why this is correct
BigQuery supports SQL on JSON logs and can handle burst writes up to 100,000 rows per second via streaming, making it the best fit.
- ✗
Cloud SQL
Why it's wrong here
Cloud SQL is a relational database that cannot handle 100,000 writes per second and is not optimized for semi-structured JSON logs.
- ✗
Firestore
Why it's wrong here
Firestore is a document database that does not support SQL queries and has lower write throughput limits for this volume.
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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.