PDE Ingesting and Processing the Data Practice Question
A company wants to orchestrate a multi-step data processing workflow that includes calling a Cloud Run service, waiting for its completion, and then running a BigQuery query. The workflow should be serverless and integrate with Cloud Events. Which Google Cloud service should they use?
⚠ Common exam trap
It's easy for candidates to confuse Google Cloud's Eventarc (event routing) with workflow orchestration, assuming that routing events alone can handle sequencing and waiting, when in fact Eventarc lacks the state management and step coordination required for multi-step workflows.
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
✓
Cloud Workflows
Cloud Workflows is the correct choice because it is a serverless workflow orchestrator that can coordinate multi-step processes involving Cloud Run and BigQuery. It natively supports waiting for asynchronous operations (like Cloud Run job completion) via its 'call' and 'wait' steps, and it can trigger subsequent steps such as BigQuery queries. Additionally, Cloud Workflows can be triggered by Cloud Events, making it fully integrated with the event-driven architecture described.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Eventarc
Why it's wrong here
Eventarc routes events to targets but does not provide orchestration steps.
- ✓
Cloud Workflows
Why this is correct
Workflows is a serverless orchestration service that can call Cloud Run, BigQuery, and other APIs, and can be triggered by Eventarc.
- ✗
Cloud Composer
Why it's wrong here
Cloud Composer is a managed Airflow environment but is not serverless (requires cluster).
- ✗
Cloud Dataflow
Why it's wrong here
Dataflow is for data processing, not workflow orchestration.
Quick reference
Cloud Service Model Comparison
| Model | You Manage | Provider Manages | Examples |
|---|---|---|---|
| IaaS | OS, runtime, apps, data | Hardware, hypervisor, networking | EC2, Azure VMs, GCP Compute Engine |
| PaaS | Apps and data | OS, runtime, middleware, hardware | Elastic Beanstalk, Azure App Service |
| SaaS | Data and settings only | Everything else | Microsoft 365, Salesforce, Workday |
| FaaS / Serverless | Function code only | Infra, scaling, runtime | Lambda, Azure Functions, Cloud Run |
| CaaS | Containers and apps | Kubernetes, OS, hardware | EKS, AKS, GKE |
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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.