This ACE practice question tests your understanding of planning and configuring a cloud solution. Read the scenario carefully and evaluate each option against the stated constraints before committing to an answer. 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 needs to store structured data with strong consistency and global distribution for a global user base. Which Google Cloud database service is best suited?
Clue words in this question
Noticing these words before you look at the options changes how you read each choice.
Clue: "best"
Why it matters: Signals that multiple options may be partially correct. Choose the option that most directly solves the exact problem described, not the one that sounds most complete.
Bigtable
Why wrong: Bigtable is NoSQL with eventual consistency, not strong.
Cloud Spanner
Cloud Spanner is a globally distributed, strongly consistent database.
Cloud SQL
Why wrong: Cloud SQL is regional, not globally distributed.
Firestore
Why wrong: Firestore in multi-region mode is eventually consistent.
Answer choices
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
Cloud Spanner
Cloud Spanner is the correct choice because it provides strong consistency, horizontal scalability, and global distribution via synchronous replication across regions. It supports SQL queries and ACID transactions, making it ideal for structured data that requires both consistency and global access.
Key principle: Answer the scenario, not the keyword: identify the specific constraint before choosing the most familiar-sounding option.
Answer analysis
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
Bigtable
Why it's wrong here
Bigtable is NoSQL with eventual consistency, not strong.
Cloud Spanner
Why this is correct
Cloud Spanner is a globally distributed, strongly consistent database.
Clue confirmation
The clue word "best" in the question point toward this answer.
Related concept
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
Cloud SQL
Why it's wrong here
Cloud SQL is regional, not globally distributed.
Firestore
Why it's wrong here
Firestore in multi-region mode is eventually consistent.
Common exam traps
The trap here is that candidates often confuse Firestore's multi-region mode with strong global consistency, not realizing that Firestore sacrifices consistency for availability in that configuration, while Cloud Spanner is the only option that guarantees strong consistency across globally distributed regions.
Detailed technical explanation
Cloud Spanner uses TrueTime, a globally synchronized clock based on GPS and atomic clocks, to enforce external consistency and linearizable transactions across regions. It employs Paxos-based synchronous replication to ensure that writes are committed in a majority of replicas before acknowledging success, guaranteeing strong consistency even during regional failures. In a real-world scenario, a global financial trading platform would use Spanner to maintain accurate account balances across continents without sacrificing performance.
Key takeaway
Answer the scenario, not the keyword: identify the specific constraint before choosing the most familiar-sounding option.
Real-world example
A company's IT admin needs to give a contractor read-only access to production logs without sharing account credentials. Using role-based access control (RBAC) and temporary scoped permissions — not a permanent shared password — is the correct pattern. Questions like this test whether you can apply least-privilege access across cloud identity services.
What to study next
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FAQ
Planning and configuring a cloud solution — This question tests Planning and configuring a cloud solution — Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer..
The correct answer is: Cloud Spanner — Cloud Spanner is the correct choice because it provides strong consistency, horizontal scalability, and global distribution via synchronous replication across regions. It supports SQL queries and ACID transactions, making it ideal for structured data that requires both consistency and global access.
Identify which exam domain this question belongs to, review the core concept, then practise similar questions from the same domain.
Yes — watch for: "best". Signals that multiple options may be partially correct. Choose the option that most directly solves the exact problem described, not the one that sounds most complete.
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
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Last reviewed: Jun 25, 2026
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.
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