Question 100 of 1,446
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 engineer needs to run complex analytical queries on terabytes of data with sub-second query latency. The data is stored in Google Cloud Storage and updated daily. Which database 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 designed for complex SQL queries on large datasets with fast query execution. It can query data directly from Cloud Storage using external tables. Cloud SQL and Spanner are for OLTP, Bigtable for real-time low-latency lookups.
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
Bigtable is for low-latency NoSQL access, not complex analytical SQL queries.
- ✓
BigQuery
Why this is correct
BigQuery is the correct choice for petabyte-scale analytics with fast SQL queries.
- ✗
Cloud SQL
Why it's wrong here
Cloud SQL is for transactional workloads, not large-scale analytics.
- ✗
Cloud Spanner
Why it's wrong here
Spanner is a relational database for OLTP/HTAP, but not optimized for large-scale analytical queries with sub-second latency.
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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Last reviewed: Jul 4, 2026
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.
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