PCNE Practice Question: Designing, Planning, and Prototyping a GCP Network
A company is designing a VPC for a multi-tier web application. They need to ensure that the web servers can be reached from the internet, but the database servers should only be accessible from the web servers. Which three components should they use to achieve this? (Choose THREE.)
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
✓
External IP addresses on the web servers
Firewall rules control traffic between tiers; Cloud NAT provides outbound internet for private instances; and external IPs allow inbound internet traffic to web servers.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✓
External IP addresses on the web servers
Why this is correct
External IPs allow inbound internet traffic to web servers.
- ✗
VPC Network Peering with a partner network
Why it's wrong here
Not needed for internal traffic within the VPC.
- ✗
Shared VPC
Why it's wrong here
Unnecessary; the application can be in a single VPC.
- ✓
Cloud NAT for database servers to access the internet
Why this is correct
Cloud NAT provides outbound-only internet for private instances.
- ✓
Firewall rules to restrict traffic between subnets
Why this is correct
Firewall rules can allow only web-to-db traffic.
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JA
Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
This PCNE 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 PCNE exam.