← GCDL·Google Cloud

Question 409 of 507

Scaling with Google Cloud operations →mediumMultiple ChoiceObjective-mapped

Quick Answer

The correct action is to freeze feature deployments for the remainder of the month and focus on reliability improvements, because the 50-minute outage has already consumed the entire monthly error budget of 43 minutes, violating the 99.9% SLO. In Site Reliability Engineering, when the error budget is exhausted, the team must shift from feature velocity to stability, halting all non-critical deployments to prevent further SLO breaches while investigating the root cause and hardening the deployment process. On the Google Cloud Digital Leader exam, this scenario tests your understanding of error budget policies as a core SRE practice—a common trap is thinking you can still deploy if you “fix” the issue quickly, but the budget is already spent for the month. Remember the memory tip: “Budget blown, deployments on hold—stability over speed until the month is old.”

Cloud Digital Leader Scaling with Google Cloud operations Practice Question

This GCDL practice question tests your understanding of scaling with google cloud operations. 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.

An SRE team has a monthly error budget of 43 minutes (99.9% SLO). In the first week of the month, a deployment causes a 50-minute outage. What should the SRE team do for the remainder of the month, and why?

Clue words in this question

Noticing these words before you look at the options changes how you read each choice.

Clue: "first"
Why it matters: Order matters here. You are being tested on which action comes before the others — not which action is generally useful.

Question 1mediummultiple choice

Full question →

A
Immediately deploy a hotfix to restore features that were rolled back during the outage.
Why wrong: Another deployment risks consuming more error budget. With budget exhausted, new deployments should be frozen until the budget resets next month.
B
Freeze feature deployments for the rest of the month, focus on reliability improvements, and investigate the deployment process that caused the outage.
Budget exhausted = feature freeze. SRE teams use budget exhaustion as a signal to pause new features and focus on root cause analysis and reliability improvements before resuming velocity.
C
Negotiate with stakeholders to increase the SLO to 99.5% to get more error budget.
Why wrong: Relaxing the SLO gives more budget headroom but doesn't fix the underlying reliability problem. SLOs should reflect user needs, not be adjusted to accommodate poor reliability.
D
Continue deploying features normally — the outage was a one-time event and won't happen again.
Why wrong: Treating an outage as a one-time event without systematic improvement is a reliability anti-pattern. Error budget accounting exists precisely to make reliability costs visible and force corrective action.

Full breakdown with real-world context →

Answer choices

Why each option matters

Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.

Correct answer & explanation

✓

Freeze feature deployments for the rest of the month, focus on reliability improvements, and investigate the deployment process that caused the outage.

The team has already consumed more than the entire monthly error budget (50 minutes used vs. 43 minutes allowed). To avoid violating the 99.9% SLO for the rest of the month, they must freeze feature deployments and focus on reliability improvements. This is a core SRE practice: when the error budget is exhausted, the team shifts from feature velocity to stability, investigating the root cause and hardening the deployment process.

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.

✗
Immediately deploy a hotfix to restore features that were rolled back during the outage.
Why it's wrong here
Another deployment risks consuming more error budget. With budget exhausted, new deployments should be frozen until the budget resets next month.
✓
Freeze feature deployments for the rest of the month, focus on reliability improvements, and investigate the deployment process that caused the outage.
Why this is correct
Budget exhausted = feature freeze. SRE teams use budget exhaustion as a signal to pause new features and focus on root cause analysis and reliability improvements before resuming velocity.
Clue confirmation
The clue word "first" in the question point toward this answer.
Related concept
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
✗
Negotiate with stakeholders to increase the SLO to 99.5% to get more error budget.
Why it's wrong here
Relaxing the SLO gives more budget headroom but doesn't fix the underlying reliability problem. SLOs should reflect user needs, not be adjusted to accommodate poor reliability.
✗
Continue deploying features normally — the outage was a one-time event and won't happen again.
Why it's wrong here
Treating an outage as a one-time event without systematic improvement is a reliability anti-pattern. Error budget accounting exists precisely to make reliability costs visible and force corrective action.

Common exam traps

Common exam trap: answer the scenario, not the keyword

Cisco often tests the misconception that you can 'negotiate' or 'increase' the SLO to fix an error budget deficit, but increasing the SLO actually tightens the budget, and the correct response is to halt feature deployments until the next budget window.

Detailed technical explanation

How to think about this question

Under the SRE model, error budget is calculated as (1 - SLO) * total time in the period. For a 99.9% SLO over a 30-day month, the budget is 0.001 * 43,200 minutes = 43.2 minutes. Once the budget is burned, the team must enter a 'freeze' state where only reliability-critical changes (e.g., rollbacks, fixes for the root cause) are allowed, as defined in Google's SRE workbook. This aligns with the concept of 'error budget policy' — a governance mechanism that balances release velocity with reliability.

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 cloud solutions architect for a retail company is evaluating services for a new workload. The correct answer here reflects best practice for the specific scenario described — not a general cloud recommendation. Answer the scenario, not the keyword: identify the specific constraint before choosing the most familiar-sounding option. Cloud exam questions reward reading the constraint carefully: the same technology can be right or wrong depending on the use case.

What to study next

Got this wrong? Here's your next step.

Identify which exam domain this question belongs to, review the core concept, then practise similar questions from the same domain.

Related GCDL practice-question pages

Use these pages to review the topic behind this question. This is how one missed question becomes focused revision.

Why cloud technology is transforming business practice questions

Practise GCDL questions linked to Why cloud technology is transforming business.

Fundamental cloud concepts practice questions

Practise GCDL questions linked to Fundamental cloud concepts.

Google Cloud products, services, and solutions practice questions

Practise GCDL questions linked to Google Cloud products, services, and solutions.

Scaling with Google Cloud operations practice questions

Practise GCDL questions linked to Scaling with Google Cloud operations.

Trust and security with Google Cloud practice questions

Practise GCDL questions linked to Trust and security with Google Cloud.

GCDL fundamentals practice questions

Practise GCDL questions linked to GCDL fundamentals.

GCDL scenario practice questions

Practise GCDL questions linked to GCDL scenario.

GCDL troubleshooting practice questions

Practise GCDL questions linked to GCDL troubleshooting.

Practice this exam

Start a free GCDL practice session

Short sessions build daily habit. Longer sessions build exam-day stamina. Try a timed session to simulate real conditions.

10 questions 20 questions 30 questions 50 questions Timed 30

GCDL practice-test guide →Study guide →Browse all practice tests

FAQ

Questions learners often ask

What does this GCDL question test?

Scaling with Google Cloud operations — This question tests Scaling with Google Cloud operations — Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer..

What is the correct answer to this question?

The correct answer is: Freeze feature deployments for the rest of the month, focus on reliability improvements, and investigate the deployment process that caused the outage. — The team has already consumed more than the entire monthly error budget (50 minutes used vs. 43 minutes allowed). To avoid violating the 99.9% SLO for the rest of the month, they must freeze feature deployments and focus on reliability improvements. This is a core SRE practice: when the error budget is exhausted, the team shifts from feature velocity to stability, investigating the root cause and hardening the deployment process.

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.

Are there clue words in this question I should notice?

Yes — watch for: "first". Order matters here. You are being tested on which action comes before the others — not which action is generally useful.

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 →

How Courseiva writes practice questions · Editorial policy

Keep practising

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.

Loading comments…

This GCDL 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 GCDL exam.