PCDE Practice Question: Deploy scalable and highly available databases in Google Cloud
A gaming company uses Cloud Bigtable for player state data with two clusters in different regions (us-central1 and us-west1) for disaster recovery. They need to ensure that read traffic automatically fails over to the secondary cluster if the primary cluster becomes unhealthy. They currently have a weighted DNS routing policy. Which additional configuration is required?
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
✓
Set the Bigtable cluster routing policy to 'read-failover'
Cloud Bigtable with multi-cluster replication can use routing policies. The 'read-failover' routing policy directs reads to the nearest healthy cluster. To handle unhealthy clusters, you can use Cloud DNS with a health check that updates the routing policy, but the simplest approach is to configure the Bigtable routing policy to 'read-failover'. This policy automatically shifts reads away from unhealthy clusters.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Use a Cloud DNS health check that updates a routing policy in Bigtable
Why it's wrong here
Bigtable does not support dynamic routing policy updates via DNS health checks. DNS is used for client traffic, but the Bigtable client library handles failover.
- ✓
Set the Bigtable cluster routing policy to 'read-failover'
Why this is correct
The read-failover routing policy ensures that if the primary cluster is unhealthy, reads are automatically directed to the next healthy cluster.
- ✗
Enable multi-cluster routing by setting 'any-replica' policy
Why it's wrong here
The 'any-replica' policy sends reads to the closest replica but does not automatically failover if a cluster is unhealthy; it may still route to an unhealthy cluster.
- ✗
Configure a Cloud Load Balancer with a backend service pointing to the Bigtable clusters
Why it's wrong here
Bigtable is accessed via Cloud Bigtable endpoints, not through a load balancer.
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