Google ACE Practice Question: Ensuring successful operation of a cloud solution
This ACE practice question tests your understanding of ensuring successful operation of a cloud solution. 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 DevOps team notices that a Compute Engine instance running a critical application has been terminated unexpectedly. The team wants to ensure the instance restarts automatically if it stops. Which configuration should they use?
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
✓
Enable the 'Automatic restart' flag on the instance template.
Option C is correct because enabling the 'Automatic restart' flag on the instance template ensures that Compute Engine automatically restarts the VM if it terminates due to a non-user-initiated failure (e.g., hardware failure, system crash). This is the native mechanism for automatic recovery without requiring external scripts or manual intervention.
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.
✗
Configure a startup script that checks for termination and restarts the instance.
Why it's wrong here
A startup script runs at boot but does not automatically restart the instance after termination.
✗
Set the 'On host maintenance' policy to 'Migrate VM instance'.
Why it's wrong here
This only affects behavior during host maintenance events, not unexpected terminations.
✓
Enable the 'Automatic restart' flag on the instance template.
Why this is correct
Enabling automatic restart causes Compute Engine to restart the instance if it terminates for a non-user-initiated reason.
Related concept
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
✗
Create a firewall rule to allow health check traffic from the load balancer.
Common exam trap: answer the scenario, not the keyword
Google Cloud often tests the distinction between 'Automatic restart' (for infrastructure failures) and managed instance group autohealing (for application-level health), leading candidates to confuse the two or incorrectly choose a startup script as a restart mechanism.
Detailed technical explanation
How to think about this question
The 'Automatic restart' flag is part of the instance's scheduling options and relies on Compute Engine's internal health monitoring, which detects when a VM stops due to infrastructure failures (e.g., host machine crash). It does not cover user-initiated stops (e.g., gcloud compute instances stop) or OS-level shutdowns; for those, a managed instance group with autohealing is required. This flag is set at the instance template level and applies to all instances created from that template.
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.
Ensuring successful operation of a cloud solution — This question tests Ensuring successful operation of a cloud solution — Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer..
What is the correct answer to this question?
The correct answer is: Enable the 'Automatic restart' flag on the instance template. — Option C is correct because enabling the 'Automatic restart' flag on the instance template ensures that Compute Engine automatically restarts the VM if it terminates due to a non-user-initiated failure (e.g., hardware failure, system crash). This is the native mechanism for automatic recovery without requiring external scripts or manual intervention.
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.