PDE Maintaining and Automating Data Workloads Practice Question
You need to set up a BigQuery reservation that provides a baseline of 500 slots for daily workloads and can automatically scale up to 1000 slots during peak times. You want to pay only for the slots used beyond the baseline. Which reservation configuration should you choose?
⚠ Common exam trap
Candidates often confuse committed use slots (always billed) with autoscaling (pay only for additional slots used beyond baseline) for variable workloads, leading them to incorrectly select flex slots or committed slots.
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
✓
Create a reservation with 500 baseline slots and enable autoscaling up to 1000 slots.
BigQuery reservations support baseline slots with autoscaling, which allows you to set a committed baseline of 500 slots and automatically scale up to 1000 slots during peak demand. You are billed only for the additional slots used beyond the baseline, which matches the requirement of paying only for slots used beyond the baseline.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Create a reservation with 500 committed slots and another with 500 flex slots.
Why it's wrong here
Flex slots are purchased in advance and are not automatically scaled.
- ✗
Use on-demand pricing with a maximum query cost limit.
Why it's wrong here
On-demand does not guarantee slot capacity; it's not a reservation.
- ✗
Purchase 1000 committed use slots to ensure consistent capacity.
Why it's wrong here
This would pay for 1000 slots always, not just during peaks, costing more.
- ✓
Create a reservation with 500 baseline slots and enable autoscaling up to 1000 slots.
Why this is correct
This configuration provides baseline committed slots and on-demand autoscaling.
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