PCDOE Optimizing service performance Practice Question
A company runs a microservices architecture on GKE and notices high network latency between services. Which THREE actions can improve inter-service communication performance?
⚠ Common exam trap
Google Cloud often tests the misconception that security features like mTLS always improve performance, when in reality they add computational cost, and that scaling nodes always reduces latency, ignoring the potential for increased cross-node traffic.
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
✓
Implement caching at the API gateway to reduce redundant requests
Implementing caching at the API gateway reduces redundant requests, which directly decreases network round trips and lowers latency for repeated data retrievals. This is a common performance optimization in microservices architectures, as it offloads backend services and minimizes inter-service chatter.
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 Istio mTLS for all service-to-service communication
Why it's wrong here
mTLS adds encryption overhead, increasing latency rather than reducing it.
- ✗
Increase the number of nodes in the cluster
Why it's wrong here
More nodes may help with capacity but not necessarily reduce inter-service latency; could even add hops.
- ✓
Implement caching at the API gateway to reduce redundant requests
Why this is correct
Caching at the gateway avoids repeated processing, lowering latency for frequent requests.
- ✓
Enable HTTP/2 and gRPC for inter-service communication
Why this is correct
HTTP/2 multiplexes streams, and gRPC uses binary protocol, reducing latency and CPU usage.
- ✓
Use headless services for direct pod-to-pod communication
Why this is correct
Headless services allow direct pod IP resolution, bypassing kube-proxy and reducing routing hops.
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JA
Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
This PCDOE 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 PCDOE exam.