Google ACE Setting up a cloud solution environment Practice Question
This ACE practice question tests your understanding of setting up a cloud solution environment. This is a configuration task: choose the command set that satisfies every stated requirement. Small differences — like 'secret' vs 'password' or 'transport input ssh' vs 'all' — change whether the answer is correct. 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 migrating a legacy on-premises application to Google Cloud. The application stores structured transactional data in a relational database. The database currently handles 2,000 transactions per second (TPS) and is expected to grow to 10,000 TPS over the next year. The database size is 500 GB. The application requires strong consistency and the ability to run complex JOIN queries. Which Google Cloud database service should the company choose?
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
✓
Cloud SQL for PostgreSQL
Cloud SQL for PostgreSQL is the correct choice because it provides a fully managed relational database with strong ACID compliance, support for complex JOIN queries, and can scale vertically or via read replicas to handle up to 10,000 TPS with proper configuration. The 500 GB database size is well within Cloud SQL's limits, and PostgreSQL's native support for complex joins meets the application's requirements without the operational overhead of self-managed databases.
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.
✗
Cloud Spanner
Why it's wrong here
Spanner is designed for global scale (>100 TB) and very high TPS, but is more expensive and complex than needed.
✓
Cloud SQL for PostgreSQL
Why this is correct
Cloud SQL provides a fully managed relational database with strong consistency and support for complex queries.
Related concept
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
✗
Cloud Bigtable
Why it's wrong here
Bigtable is a NoSQL wide-column database, not suited for complex joins.
✗
Cloud Firestore
Why it's wrong here
Firestore is a NoSQL document database and does not support SQL JOIN queries.
Common exam traps
Common exam trap: answer the scenario, not the keyword
Google Cloud often tests the misconception that Cloud Spanner is the only option for strong consistency and high TPS, but the trap here is that the workload is single-region and moderate scale, making Cloud SQL a simpler and more cost-effective choice despite Spanner's global capabilities.
Detailed technical explanation
How to think about this question
Cloud SQL for PostgreSQL uses the standard PostgreSQL engine, which supports multi-version concurrency control (MVCC) for strong consistency and can handle complex JOINs via hash, merge, or nested loop algorithms. For scaling to 10,000 TPS, you can use read replicas for read-heavy workloads and vertical scaling (e.g., up to 96 vCPUs and 624 GB RAM) for write-heavy loads, but note that Cloud SQL has a maximum of 10 read replicas and a 30 TB storage limit per instance, which is more than sufficient for 500 GB.
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
An e-commerce site experiences heavy traffic on Black Friday and near-zero traffic during off-peak weeks. Rather than provisioning permanent large VMs, the team uses auto-scaling groups that add capacity automatically under load and reduce it overnight. Questions like this test whether you understand elasticity, availability zones, and cloud compute scaling patterns.
Related glossary terms
Concepts from this question explained
These glossary pages explain the core terms tested in this ACE question in full detail.
Setting up a cloud solution environment — This question tests Setting up a cloud solution environment — Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer..
What is the correct answer to this question?
The correct answer is: Cloud SQL for PostgreSQL — Cloud SQL for PostgreSQL is the correct choice because it provides a fully managed relational database with strong ACID compliance, support for complex JOIN queries, and can scale vertically or via read replicas to handle up to 10,000 TPS with proper configuration. The 500 GB database size is well within Cloud SQL's limits, and PostgreSQL's native support for complex joins meets the application's requirements without the operational overhead of self-managed databases.
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.
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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
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