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PCDE Practice Question: Deploy scalable and highly available databases in Google Cloud
A company uses Cloud Bigtable with two clusters in different regions for disaster recovery. They need to ensure that if the primary cluster becomes unavailable, read traffic is automatically redirected to the secondary cluster with minimal manual intervention. Which three actions should they take? (Choose THREE)
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 multi-cluster replication between the clusters
To achieve automatic failover for Bigtable reads, you need: (1) multi-cluster replication enabled, (2) a routing policy that supports failover (read-failover or any-replica with health checking), and (3) an external health check mechanism (like Cloud DNS health checks) to redirect client traffic if the primary cluster is unhealthy. Option D (write failback) is not relevant for reads. Option E (read-only replicas) is not applicable as Bigtable doesn't have that concept.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✓
Enable multi-cluster replication between the clusters
Why this is correct
Multi-cluster replication is necessary to keep data in sync across regions.
- ✓
Set up Cloud DNS with a health check to detect cluster health and update DNS records accordingly
Why this is correct
Cloud DNS health checks can redirect traffic away from an unhealthy cluster, enabling automatic failover.
- ✓
Configure the Bigtable routing policy to 'any-replica' or 'read-failover'
Why this is correct
The routing policy determines how reads are distributed; 'read-failover' is designed for automatic failover.
- ✗
Add read-only replicas to the secondary cluster
Why it's wrong here
Bigtable clusters are all read-write; there is no concept of read-only replicas.
- ✗
Configure a write failback policy to switch write clusters
Why it's wrong here
Write failback is not relevant for read traffic failover; writes are handled by the application layer.
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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.