easyMultiple Choice
PDE Practice Question: A data engineer needs to design a data processing…
A data engineer needs to design a data processing system that ingests large volumes of sensor data from IoT devices. The data should be stored in a schema-less format and allow for real-time analytics. Which Google Cloud service is most appropriate?
⚠ Common exam trap
Candidates often confuse Cloud Bigtable with Firestore or Cloud SQL because they all offer NoSQL or relational storage, but fail to recognize that Bigtable is purpose-built for high-throughput, schema-less time-series data and real-time analytics, while the others are optimized for transactional or mobile workloads.
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 Bigtable
Cloud Bigtable is the most appropriate choice because it is a fully managed, scalable NoSQL database designed for large-scale analytical and operational workloads. It supports schema-less storage of time-series sensor data and integrates with real-time analytics tools like BigQuery and Dataflow via the HBase API, meeting the requirements for high-throughput ingestion and low-latency queries.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Cloud Spanner
Why it's wrong here
Spanner is strongly consistent and not best for high-throughput IoT ingestion.
- ✗
Firestore
Why it's wrong here
Firestore is for mobile and web apps, not high-volume IoT.
- ✓
Cloud Bigtable
Why this is correct
Bigtable is schema-less, highly scalable, and ideal for time-series sensor data.
- ✗
Cloud SQL
Why it's wrong here
Cloud SQL is relational and requires a fixed schema.
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JA
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.