PDE Ingesting and Processing the Data Practice Question
A company wants to trigger a Cloud Run service whenever a new file is uploaded to a specific Cloud Storage bucket. Which event-driven solution should they use?
⚠ Common exam trap
Many exam-takers confuse Cloud Functions (option C) as the only serverless compute option for Cloud Storage events, overlooking that Eventarc is the modern, preferred service for routing events to Cloud Run, and that Pub/Sub (option D) requires manual setup not shown in the question.
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
✓
Eventarc with Cloud Storage trigger and Cloud Run destination
Eventarc is the recommended service for routing events from Cloud Storage to Cloud Run because it provides a fully managed, event-driven architecture with built-in filtering and retry logic. When a new file is uploaded, Cloud Storage emits a notification that Eventarc captures and delivers directly to the Cloud Run service as an HTTP request, enabling serverless processing without polling or additional infrastructure.
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 with Cloud Storage trigger and Cloud Run destination
Why this is correct
Eventarc receives Cloud Storage object-finalise events and routes them to Cloud Run, providing native event-driven invocation without polling. This satisfies the requirement to trigger the service whenever a new file lands in the specified bucket.
- ✗
Cloud Scheduler to periodically poll the bucket
Why it's wrong here
Polling introduces latency and misses the event-driven requirement, since Cloud Scheduler cannot subscribe to Cloud Storage object-creation events. It is tempting because scheduled jobs suit batch or periodic workloads, but triggering Cloud Run on each upload requires Eventarc, which delivers Cloud Storage events directly.
- ✗
Cloud Functions triggered by Cloud Storage
Why it's wrong here
Cloud Functions is a separate compute product; it cannot trigger a Cloud Run service on object creation. It is tempting because Cloud Functions natively handles Cloud Storage events, which is correct when the handler itself runs as a function rather than a Cloud Run container, as here.
- ✗
Pub/Sub with a push subscription to Cloud Run
Why it's wrong here
Pub/Sub push subscriptions can deliver events to Cloud Run, but Cloud Storage does not natively publish object-finalise events directly to Pub/Sub; it emits notifications through a legacy mechanism or via Eventarc. The correct solution uses Eventarc to route Cloud Storage events to Cloud Run, because Eventarc translates the storage notification into a CloudEvents format that Cloud Run can consume. This option is tempting because Pub/Sub push subscriptions are a common pattern for decoupled event delivery, and they would be correct if the event source already published to a Pub/Sub topic—for example, when forwarding custom application events from a backend service.
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.