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Question 562 of 1,446

PCDE Practice Question: Design innovative, scalable, and highly available cloud database solutions

An e-commerce platform runs on Cloud SQL and expects heavy write traffic during a flash sale. The database instance currently has 8 vCPUs and 32 GB RAM. Based on the max_connections formula (max_connections = RAM_MB/16), what is the current maximum number of connections, and what change would increase it?

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

2048 connections; increase RAM to 64 GB

With 32 GB = 32768 MB, max_connections = 32768/16 = 2048. To increase connections, you need to increase RAM (e.g., 64 GB gives 4096). vCPU does not directly affect max_connections per the formula.

Answer analysis

Option-by-option breakdown

For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.

  • 2048 connections; increase vCPU to 16

    Why it's wrong here

    max_connections depends on RAM, not vCPU.

  • 4096 connections; increase vCPU to 16

    Why it's wrong here

    Incorrect starting value and misunderstanding of the formula.

  • 2048 connections; increase RAM to 64 GB

    Why this is correct

    64 GB = 65536 MB, max_connections = 4096.

  • 4096 connections; increase RAM to 64 GB

    Why it's wrong here

    Initial max_connections is 2048, not 4096.

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Last reviewed: Jul 4, 2026

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