Google ACE Planning and configuring a cloud solution Practice Question
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 team is using Cloud Deployment Manager to define infrastructure as code. They need to ensure that a Cloud Storage bucket is created before a Compute Engine instance that uses the bucket. How should they accomplish this?
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
✓
Set a dependency using the 'dependsOn' field in the instance resource definition
In Cloud Deployment Manager, you can define explicit dependencies between resources using the `dependsOn` field within the resource definition. This ensures that the Cloud Storage bucket is fully created before the Compute Engine instance that references it, preventing race conditions or deployment failures. The `dependsOn` field accepts a list of resource names or selfLinks, and Deployment Manager waits for the depended-on resource to reach a DONE state before creating the dependent resource.
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.
✗
Use a dependsOn metadata annotation in the instance template
Why it's wrong here
dependsOn is not a metadata annotation in Deployment Manager.
✓
Set a dependency using the 'dependsOn' field in the instance resource definition
Why this is correct
dependsOn in the resource definition ensures the bucket is created first.
Related concept
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
✗
Reference the bucket's selfLink in the instance template metadata
Why it's wrong here
Referencing does not enforce creation order.
✗
Create the bucket and instance in separate deployments and run them sequentially
Why it's wrong here
Possible but not as elegant or manageable.
Common exam traps
Common exam trap: answer the scenario, not the keyword
Google Cloud often tests the misconception that simply referencing a resource's attribute (like selfLink) in another resource's configuration automatically creates a dependency, but in Deployment Manager, dependencies must be explicitly declared with `dependsOn`.
Detailed technical explanation
How to think about this question
Under the hood, Deployment Manager's `dependsOn` field maps to the underlying Google API's resource dependency graph, which is resolved during the deployment's layout phase. If you omit `dependsOn`, Deployment Manager may create resources in parallel, leading to a race condition where the instance references a bucket that does not yet exist, causing a 404 error. A subtle behavior is that `dependsOn` can reference resources defined in the same deployment or in a different deployment using the full resource URL, but cross-deployment dependencies require careful ordering of deployment operations.
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: Set a dependency using the 'dependsOn' field in the instance resource definition — In Cloud Deployment Manager, you can define explicit dependencies between resources using the `dependsOn` field within the resource definition. This ensures that the Cloud Storage bucket is fully created before the Compute Engine instance that references it, preventing race conditions or deployment failures. The `dependsOn` field accepts a list of resource names or selfLinks, and Deployment Manager waits for the depended-on resource to reach a DONE state before creating the dependent resource.
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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Question Discussion
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