Design innovative, scalable, and highly available cloud database solutions →easyMultiple ChoiceObjective-mapped
PCDE Practice Question: Design innovative, scalable, and highly available cloud database solutions
A data analyst needs to run ad-hoc SQL queries on a large dataset stored in Google Cloud Storage (CSV files). They do not want to manage any infrastructure. Which service should they use?
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 is a serverless data warehouse that can query external data sources like GCS directly using federated queries.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Dataproc
Why it's wrong here
Dataproc requires managed clusters, not serverless.
- ✗
Cloud Spanner
Why it's wrong here
Spanner is for transactional workloads, not ad-hoc analytics on external data.
- ✓
BigQuery
Why this is correct
BigQuery can query data in GCS using external tables without loading.
- ✗
Cloud SQL
Why it's wrong here
Cloud SQL requires importing data first; not designed for external data queries.
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 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.