GCDL Practice Question: A traditional retailer currently maintains its…
This GCDL practice question tests your understanding of a traditional retailer currently maintains its…. 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 traditional retailer currently maintains its own data centers, purchasing servers every 3–5 years and paying for facilities, power, and staff regardless of demand. When it migrates its workloads to the public cloud, which change in cost model does it experience?
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.
Distractor review
From operational expenditure (OpEx) to capital expenditure (CapEx)
This is the reverse. Traditional on-premises spending is CapEx (large upfront hardware purchases). Cloud spending is OpEx (recurring usage-based payments).
Distractor review
From consumption-based billing to annual depreciation cycles
Annual depreciation applies to on-premises hardware (CapEx accounting). Cloud billing is consumption-based — the opposite direction.
Best answer
From capital expenditure (CapEx) to operational expenditure (OpEx)
Cloud eliminates large upfront hardware purchases (CapEx) and replaces them with pay-as-you-go usage fees (OpEx), aligning costs directly with actual business consumption.
Distractor review
From variable costs to fixed monthly costs
Cloud costs are typically variable (scaling with usage), which is the opposite of fixed. On-premises depreciation schedules create more predictable fixed costs.
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 GCDL practice-question pages
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More questions from this exam
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Question 1
An e-commerce company plans its infrastructure for peak shopping events (e.g., Black Friday) which drive 50× normal traffic. On-premises, they must maintain 50× capacity year-round. In the cloud, they provision 50× capacity only during peak periods. Which cloud characteristic enables this cost optimization?
Question 2
Which term describes the process by which organizations integrate digital technology into all areas of their business, fundamentally changing how they operate and deliver value to customers?
Question 3
When a company moves from maintaining its own data center to using Google Cloud, which operational responsibility does Google assume that the company previously managed?
Question 4
A hospital runs a patient records system that must remain on-premises due to strict regulatory data residency requirements. However, they also want to use cloud-based AI for diagnostic imaging analysis. Which cloud deployment model best describes their architecture?
Question 5
What is virtualization in the context of cloud computing, and why is it fundamental to how cloud providers deliver services?
Question 6
Which term describes the model where the cloud provider is responsible for the security of the cloud infrastructure, while the customer is responsible for security within their own cloud environment (data, applications, access management)?
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FAQ
Questions learners often ask
What does this GCDL question test?
Static NAT maps one inside address to one outside address.
What is the correct answer to this question?
The correct answer is: From capital expenditure (CapEx) to operational expenditure (OpEx) — Moving to the public cloud shifts infrastructure spending from capital expenditure (CapEx) — large upfront investments in hardware, facilities, and depreciation cycles — to operational expenditure (OpEx) — pay-as-you-go consumption based on actual usage. This shift improves cash flow predictability, aligns costs with business activity, and eliminates the need to over-provision hardware for peak demand that may occur infrequently.
What should I do if I get this GCDL 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 GCDL NAT questions on configuration and troubleshooting.
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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.