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GCDL Practice Question: A company's finance director asks: 'If we move to…
This GCDL practice question tests your understanding of a company's finance director asks: 'if we move to…. 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 company's finance director asks: 'If we move to cloud, do we need to buy fewer servers?' An IT architect responds that the answer depends on whether the company is adopting IaaS, PaaS, or SaaS. How does the service model affect hardware ownership?
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.
A
Distractor review
Only SaaS eliminates the need for customer servers; IaaS and PaaS still require on-premises hardware for hybrid connectivity
IaaS and PaaS also eliminate the need for servers for the workloads they run — the provider's hardware hosts the VMs and platforms. Hybrid connectivity (if needed) uses existing networking infrastructure, not servers.
B
Distractor review
The service model doesn't affect hardware ownership — hardware purchase decisions are independent of whether the company uses cloud services
Service model directly determines hardware ownership. Workloads moved to any cloud service model no longer need equivalent on-premises servers. This is one of the fundamental cost and operational differences between cloud and on-premises.
C
Distractor review
All three models (IaaS, PaaS, SaaS) require the same amount of customer-owned hardware since cloud supplements rather than replaces on-premises systems
Cloud services are designed to replace on-premises hardware for the workloads they cover. IaaS VMs replace physical servers; SaaS applications eliminate the need for any on-premises servers for that workload.
D
Best answer
In all three models, the cloud provider owns and manages the physical hardware, eliminating the need for customer-owned servers for those workloads — with IaaS requiring the most customer management (VMs) and SaaS requiring the least (just use the application)
This is correct. In all three models, the provider owns the physical hardware — the customer buys no servers. The difference is how much software infrastructure the customer manages on top: IaaS → manage VMs; PaaS → manage application code; SaaS → just use the product. All three eliminate customer hardware ownership for covered workloads.
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
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More questions from this exam
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Question 1
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?
Question 2
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 3
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 4
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 5
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 6
What is virtualization in the context of cloud computing, and why is it fundamental to how cloud providers deliver services?
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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: In all three models, the cloud provider owns and manages the physical hardware, eliminating the need for customer-owned servers for those workloads — with IaaS requiring the most customer management (VMs) and SaaS requiring the least (just use the application) — In IaaS, the customer eliminates the need for their own servers (hardware owned and managed by the provider), but still manages VMs (software-level infrastructure). In PaaS, customers eliminate servers AND the OS/runtime management layer. In SaaS, customers eliminate all IT infrastructure — they simply use the application. The higher the service model, the more infrastructure the provider owns and manages.
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.