Cloud Digital Leader Practice Question: Google Cloud products, services, and solutions
This GCDL practice question tests your understanding of google cloud products, services, and solutions. 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 media company has a web application that serves video content globally. The application is deployed on Compute Engine instances behind a TCP load balancer in a single region. Users in distant regions experience high latency. The company wants to improve performance for all users while keeping operational overhead low. They also need to handle sudden spikes in traffic during live events. What should they do?
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
✓
Deploy additional instances in multiple regions and use a global HTTP(S) load balancer with Cloud CDN.
Option A is correct because deploying instances in multiple regions and using a global HTTP(S) load balancer with Cloud CDN reduces latency by serving content from edge locations close to users. Cloud CDN caches video content at Google's global edge points of presence (PoPs), while the global HTTP(S) load balancer provides anycast IP-based traffic distribution across regions, handling traffic spikes through automatic scaling and distributed capacity.
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.
✓
Deploy additional instances in multiple regions and use a global HTTP(S) load balancer with Cloud CDN.
Why this is correct
Reduces latency and handles traffic spikes globally.
Related concept
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
✗
Use Cloud Run for the application and enable automatic scaling globally.
Why it's wrong here
Cloud Run is regional; cannot scale globally with a single deployment.
✗
Move the application to Google Kubernetes Engine and use horizontal pod autoscaling.
Why it's wrong here
Helps scalability but not global latency.
✗
Increase the machine type of existing instances and add more instances in the same region.
Why it's wrong here
Does not reduce latency for users far from the region.
Common exam traps
Common exam trap: answer the scenario, not the keyword
The trap here is that candidates may think Cloud Run or GKE with autoscaling alone can solve global latency, but they overlook the need for multi-region deployment and edge caching, which are essential for reducing geographic latency and handling global traffic spikes with low operational overhead.
Detailed technical explanation
How to think about this question
Global HTTP(S) load balancer uses anycast IP addresses (e.g., 34.96.0.0/16 range) to route traffic to the nearest healthy backend instance across regions, leveraging Google's global network and BGP routing. Cloud CDN caches video content at over 150 edge locations, reducing origin load and latency for repeated requests; for live events, cache fill and dynamic content can be optimized with request coalescing and negative caching. The combination allows handling sudden traffic spikes by distributing load across multiple regions and scaling instances based on CPU or request count via managed instance groups.
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 GCDL question in full detail.
Google Cloud products, services, and solutions — This question tests Google Cloud products, services, and solutions — Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer..
What is the correct answer to this question?
The correct answer is: Deploy additional instances in multiple regions and use a global HTTP(S) load balancer with Cloud CDN. — Option A is correct because deploying instances in multiple regions and using a global HTTP(S) load balancer with Cloud CDN reduces latency by serving content from edge locations close to users. Cloud CDN caches video content at Google's global edge points of presence (PoPs), while the global HTTP(S) load balancer provides anycast IP-based traffic distribution across regions, handling traffic spikes through automatic scaling and distributed capacity.
What should I do if I get this GCDL 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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