PDE Ingesting and Processing the Data Practice Question
A data engineer needs to schedule a recurring transfer of data from a partner's Amazon S3 bucket to a Cloud Storage bucket for further processing. Which THREE components or configurations are necessary? (Choose 3)
⚠ Common exam trap
PDE often tests the misconception that additional components like VPC or Pub/Sub are required for Storage Transfer Service, when only the source/destination, job, and credentials are necessary.
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
✓
Specification of the source S3 bucket and destination GCS bucket
Storage Transfer Service is the Google Cloud service designed to move data from external sources like Amazon S3 into Cloud Storage, so the transfer job must be defined as a scheduled transfer job (option C), which controls the recurring execution. Every transfer job requires the source and destination locations to be identified, so specifying the source S3 bucket and destination GCS bucket (option B) is mandatory for the job to know what to copy and where to place it. Because the source is an external AWS S3 bucket, Storage Transfer Service must authenticate to AWS, which requires AWS credentials such as an access key ID and secret access key (option E). A VPC network configuration (option A) is not required because Storage Transfer Service is a fully managed service that does not need customer VPC networking for S3-to-GCS transfers. A Pub/Sub topic (option D) is optional, used only if you want notifications about transfer completion, not a necessary component for the transfer itself.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
A VPC network configuration
Why it's wrong here
Storage Transfer Service reaches the partner's S3 bucket over the public internet using an access key, so no VPC network configuration is needed. A VPC is tempting because it is mandatory for private connectivity such as VPN or Interconnect transfers, which this scenario does not require.
- ✓
Specification of the source S3 bucket and destination GCS bucket
Why this is correct
Storage Transfer Service requires the source and destination locations to be defined so it knows which S3 bucket to read from and which Cloud Storage bucket to write into. Specifying both endpoints is the fundamental configuration the transfer job acts upon.
- ✓
A scheduled transfer job in Storage Transfer Service
Why this is correct
A scheduled transfer job in Storage Transfer Service is the resource that executes the recurring copy on the defined schedule. Without creating the job, no transfer occurs; it is the component that binds source, destination, credentials and timing together.
- ✗
A Pub/Sub topic to notify completion
Why it's wrong here
Storage Transfer Service reports job status through its own transfer operations and Cloud Logging; no Pub/Sub topic is required for a scheduled S3-to-Cloud-Storage job. Pub/Sub is tempting because it is the standard notification path for Eventarc and Cloud Storage event triggers, not for transfer completion.
- ✓
Authentication credentials for AWS (e.g., access key and secret)
Why this is correct
Storage Transfer Service must authenticate to the partner's Amazon S3 bucket, so AWS credentials such as an access key and secret are required. Without valid AWS authentication, the transfer job cannot read the source objects.
Quick reference
AWS S3 Storage Class Comparison
| Storage Class | Min Duration | Retrieval | Use Case |
|---|---|---|---|
| S3 Standard | None | Immediate | Frequently accessed data |
| S3 Standard-IA | 30 days | Immediate | Infrequent access, rapid retrieval |
| S3 One Zone-IA | 30 days | Immediate | Non-critical infrequent data |
| S3 Intelligent-Tiering | None | Immediate–hours | Unknown or changing access patterns |
| S3 Glacier Instant | 90 days | Milliseconds | Archive with instant retrieval |
| S3 Glacier Flexible | 90 days | Minutes–hours | Archive, flexible retrieval |
| S3 Glacier Deep Archive | 180 days | Hours | Long-term compliance archive |
Go deeper
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JA
Written and reviewed by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
Last reviewed September 2026 · checked against the official Google Cloud exam blueprint
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.