ACE Practice Question: A healthcare company stores patient data in Cloud…
This ACE practice question tests your understanding of a healthcare company stores patient data in cloud…. The scenario asks you to isolate a root cause — eliminate options that address a different problem before choosing. 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 healthcare company stores patient data in Cloud Storage. Compliance requires that even GCP (Google) cannot decrypt this data. The company manages encryption keys entirely on their own infrastructure. Which encryption option satisfies this?
Answer choices
Why each option matters
Good practice is not just finding the correct option. The wrong answers often show the exact trap the exam wants you to fall into.
Best answer
Customer-Supplied Encryption Keys (CSEK) provided with each API request
CSEK requires the customer to supply the encryption key with every API request. GCP uses the key transiently and never stores it — Google cannot access data without the customer providing the key each time.
Distractor review
Google-managed encryption keys (default) with restricted IAM policies
Google-managed keys mean Google controls the encryption — IAM policies restrict data access for GCP customers but don't prevent Google from technically accessing the data.
Distractor review
Shielded VM with confidential computing for the VMs that access the data
Confidential VMs encrypt data in use (RAM) during computation — they don't address the Cloud Storage encryption key ownership requirement.
Distractor review
Customer-Managed Encryption Keys (CMEK) stored in Cloud KMS
With CMEK, the key is stored in Cloud KMS (a Google-managed service). While the customer controls access to the key, Google's infrastructure hosts it — regulators may require the key to never touch Google's systems.
Common exam trap
Common exam trap: NAT rules depend on direction and matching traffic
NAT is not only about the public address. The inside/outside interface roles and the ACL or rule that matches traffic are just as important.
Technical deep dive
How to think about this question
NAT questions usually test address translation, overload/PAT behaviour, static mappings and whether the right traffic is being translated. Read the interface direction and address terms carefully.
KKey Concepts to Remember
- Static NAT maps one inside address to one outside address.
- PAT allows many inside hosts to share one public address using ports.
- Inside local and inside global describe the private and translated addresses.
- NAT ACLs identify traffic for translation, not always security filtering.
TExam Day Tips
- Identify inside and outside interfaces first.
- Check whether the scenario needs static NAT, dynamic NAT or PAT.
- Do not confuse NAT matching ACLs with normal packet-filtering intent.
Key takeaway
NAT direction and interface roles matter as much as the IP address mapping. Inside/outside designation controls which traffic is translated.
Related practice questions
Related ACE practice-question pages
Use these pages to review the topic behind this question. This is how one missed question becomes focused revision.
More questions from this exam
Keep practising from the same exam bank, or move into a focused topic page if this question exposed a weak area.
Question 1
What is the correct order of the Google Cloud resource hierarchy from highest to lowest level?
Question 2
A compliance archive stores legal documents accessed at most once per quarter. Which Cloud Storage class minimizes storage cost while meeting that access pattern?
Question 3
Which gcloud command creates a Compute Engine VM named 'web-01' using the e2-medium machine type in zone us-central1-a?
Question 4
A team wants to receive an email alert when the average CPU utilization of VMs in a managed instance group exceeds 80% for more than 5 minutes. What should they create in Cloud Monitoring?
Question 5
A junior developer needs read-only access to all GCP resources in a project. Which IAM role grants the minimum permissions required?
Question 6
A startup creates its first Google Cloud project. Before deploying any paid resources, what must be linked to the project?
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FAQ
Questions learners often ask
What does this ACE question test?
Static NAT maps one inside address to one outside address.
What is the correct answer to this question?
The correct answer is: Customer-Supplied Encryption Keys (CSEK) provided with each API request — Customer-Supplied Encryption Keys (CSEK) means the customer provides the encryption key with each API request. GCP uses the key to encrypt/decrypt during the operation but never stores it — so GCP cannot decrypt the data without the customer providing the key. This differs from CMEK, where GCP stores the key in Cloud KMS.
What should I do if I get this ACE question wrong?
Review the four NAT address types (inside local, inside global, outside local, outside global), PAT port overload, and static vs dynamic NAT use cases. Then practise related ACE NAT questions on configuration and troubleshooting.
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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.