Deploy scalable and highly available databases in Google Cloud →mediumMultiple ChoiceObjective-mapped
PCDE Practice Question: Deploy scalable and highly available databases in Google Cloud
A company uses Cloud Spanner with a multi-region configuration (nam6) for a global user database. They experience a regional outage affecting us-central1, where the leader region is located. What happens to write availability?
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
✓
Writes automatically fail over to us-east1 within seconds
In a multi-region Spanner configuration like nam6 (us-central1 and us-east1), if the leader region (us-central1) goes down, Spanner automatically fails over to the other region (us-east1) as the new leader. This failover is automatic and typically completes within 5 seconds (RTO <5 seconds). Write availability is restored once the new leader region is elected.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Writes continue with increased latency because us-central1 is still available for reads
Why it's wrong here
If us-central1 is down, writes cannot go there; failover to us-east1 occurs.
- ✗
The Spanner instance becomes read-only until an operator manually fails over
Why it's wrong here
Failover is automatic; no manual intervention needed.
- ✗
Writes are blocked until the us-central1 region recovers
Why it's wrong here
Spanner automatically fails over to the other region; writes are not blocked.
- ✓
Writes automatically fail over to us-east1 within seconds
Why this is correct
Spanner multi-region configurations provide automatic failover to the secondary region with RTO <5 seconds.
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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.