PDE Storing the Data Practice Question
A company wants to build a data lake on Cloud Storage for raw, curated, and processed data zones. They need to enforce data governance including column-level security and row-level filtering for BigQuery queries. Which solution should they use?
⚠ Common exam trap
Google often tests the misconception that BigQuery external tables (Option B) can support the same fine-grained security as BigLake, but they cannot because external tables lack the integrated policy engine for column and row-level controls.
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
✓
BigLake tables over Cloud Storage
BigLake tables provide a unified governance layer over Cloud Storage data, enabling fine-grained access control such as column-level security and row-level filtering directly on BigQuery queries. This is achieved by integrating BigQuery's access control policies with the external data stored in GCS, without needing to move data into BigQuery native storage. The other options either lack these granular security features or require complex workarounds.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✓
BigLake tables over Cloud Storage
Why this is correct
BigLake provides fine-grained access control (column-level and row-level security) via BigQuery, along with a unified lakehouse.
- ✗
BigQuery external tables reading from GCS
Why it's wrong here
External tables do not support BigQuery column-level or row-level security natively.
- ✗
Dataproc with Spark SQL
Why it's wrong here
Dataproc is a managed Spark service; it does not provide the native BigQuery governance features.
- ✗
Cloud Storage with IAM and VPC Service Controls
Why it's wrong here
IAM and VPC SC provide network and bucket-level security, not column/row-level security on queries.
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Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
This PDE 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 PDE exam.