Google ACE Planning and configuring a cloud solution Practice Question
This ACE practice question tests your understanding of planning and configuring a cloud solution. Match the stated requirement to the specific cloud service, access model, or configuration option — many options are valid in isolation but not for this scenario. After answering, compare your reasoning against the explanation and wrong-answer breakdown below. Once you have made your selection, read the full explanation to reinforce the concept and understand why each distractor is designed to mislead on exam day.
A company is designing a globally distributed application with a web tier and a database tier that requires low-latency communication within the same region but can tolerate eventual consistency across regions. The database must be fully managed and scale globally. Which combination of networking and database is most appropriate?
Why wrong: Cloud Spanner provides strong consistency, which may be more than needed and costly; however, it is appropriate for global scale, but the question specifies eventual consistency is acceptable.
B
Global VPC with Cloud Bigtable
Cloud Bigtable is a globally distributed NoSQL database with eventual consistency, low latency, and fully managed.
C
VPC peering with Cloud SQL
Why wrong: Cloud SQL is not globally distributed; it is regional and does not scale globally.
D
Shared VPC with Cloud Datastore
Why wrong: Cloud Datastore (Firestore in Datastore mode) can scale globally but is limited to one region for strong consistency; eventual consistency is possible but not ideal for multi-tier apps.
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
✓
Global VPC with Cloud Bigtable
Cloud Bigtable is a fully managed, globally scalable NoSQL database that provides low-latency access within a region and eventual consistency across regions, making it ideal for the described workload. A Global VPC allows the web and database tiers to communicate privately and with low latency within the same region, while Bigtable's native replication handles cross-region eventual consistency without application complexity.
Key principle: Answer the scenario, not the keyword: identify the specific constraint before choosing the most familiar-sounding option.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
✗
Global VPC with Cloud Spanner
Why it's wrong here
Cloud Spanner provides strong consistency, which may be more than needed and costly; however, it is appropriate for global scale, but the question specifies eventual consistency is acceptable.
✓
Global VPC with Cloud Bigtable
Why this is correct
Cloud Bigtable is a globally distributed NoSQL database with eventual consistency, low latency, and fully managed.
Related concept
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
✗
VPC peering with Cloud SQL
Why it's wrong here
Cloud SQL is not globally distributed; it is regional and does not scale globally.
✗
Shared VPC with Cloud Datastore
Why it's wrong here
Cloud Datastore (Firestore in Datastore mode) can scale globally but is limited to one region for strong consistency; eventual consistency is possible but not ideal for multi-tier apps.
Common exam traps
Common exam trap: answer the scenario, not the keyword
Google Cloud often tests the distinction between strong consistency (Spanner) and eventual consistency (Bigtable) in globally distributed systems, and the trap here is assuming that 'fully managed and scale globally' always means Spanner, ignoring the explicit requirement for eventual consistency.
Detailed technical explanation
How to think about this question
Cloud Bigtable uses a replicated, distributed storage architecture based on Google's Chubby and Bigtable papers, where data is sharded across tablets and replicated asynchronously across clusters for eventual consistency. Under the hood, Bigtable's replication uses a multi-leader model where each cluster can accept writes, and conflicts are resolved using last-write-wins (LWW) based on timestamps, which is acceptable for eventual consistency. In a real-world scenario, a global leaderboard or time-series IoT application would benefit from Bigtable's ability to serve low-latency reads from the nearest cluster while tolerating stale data for a few seconds.
KKey Concepts to Remember
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
Find the constraint that changes the correct option.
Eliminate answers that are true in general but not in this case.
TExam Day Tips
→Watch for words such as best, first, most likely and least administrative effort.
→Review why wrong options are wrong, not only why the correct option is correct.
Key takeaway
Answer the scenario, not the keyword: identify the specific constraint before choosing the most familiar-sounding option.
Real-world example
How this comes up in practice
A media company stores terabytes of video archives that are accessed once a year for audit purposes. Moving these objects to a cold storage tier (Azure Archive, S3 Glacier, or Google Nearline) costs a fraction of hot storage. Questions like this test whether you understand storage tiers, access frequency tradeoffs, and retrieval latency requirements.
Related glossary terms
Concepts from this question explained
These glossary pages explain the core terms tested in this ACE question in full detail.
Planning and configuring a cloud solution — This question tests Planning and configuring a cloud solution — Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer..
What is the correct answer to this question?
The correct answer is: Global VPC with Cloud Bigtable — Cloud Bigtable is a fully managed, globally scalable NoSQL database that provides low-latency access within a region and eventual consistency across regions, making it ideal for the described workload. A Global VPC allows the web and database tiers to communicate privately and with low latency within the same region, while Bigtable's native replication handles cross-region eventual consistency without application complexity.
What should I do if I get this ACE question wrong?
Identify which exam domain this question belongs to, review the core concept, then practise similar questions from the same domain.
What is the key concept behind this question?
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
About these practice questions
Courseiva creates original exam-style practice questions with explanations and wrong-answer analysis. It does not publish real exam questions, exam dumps, or protected exam content. Learn why practice questions differ from exam dumps →
Share a tip, memory trick, or ask about the reasoning behind this question. Do not post real exam questions, leaked content, braindumps, or copyrighted exam material. Comments are moderated and may be removed without notice.
This ACE 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 ACE exam.
Question Discussion
Share a tip, memory trick, or ask about the reasoning behind this question. Do not post real exam questions, leaked content, braindumps, or copyrighted exam material. Comments are moderated and may be removed without notice.
Sign in to join the discussion.