- A
Deploying the application across multiple zones within the same Google Cloud region
Why wrong: Multiple zones within the same region protect against zone-level failures (hardware failures, localized outages) but not against region-level disasters. If the entire region goes down, all zones in it are affected.
- B
Using a single zone but enabling automatic VM restart policies
Why wrong: Automatic restart within a single zone provides no protection against zone or region failure. If the zone is unavailable, restart policies cannot help.
- C
Deploying the application across multiple Google Cloud regions so that if one region fails, other regions continue serving traffic
Multi-region deployment is required to survive a full regional outage. By running active or active-passive instances in multiple distinct geographic regions, the system continues operating when any single region fails. Each region is geographically and infrastructure-independently isolated.
- D
Enabling Cloud Backup for all VMs in the deployment to allow rapid restoration after a regional failure
Why wrong: Backup enables data restoration but requires recovery time (RTO). During the restoration period, the service is unavailable. Active multi-region deployment provides continuous availability with no restoration wait time.
Quick Answer
The correct answer is deploying the application across multiple Google Cloud regions so that if one region fails, others continue serving traffic. This multi-region deployment approach ensures disaster recovery during regional failures by leveraging Google Cloud’s global load balancing, such as the External HTTPS Load Balancer, which automatically reroutes traffic to healthy regional managed instance groups when an entire region becomes unavailable. On the Google Cloud Digital Leader exam, this scenario tests your understanding of high availability architecture versus simple redundancy within a single zone—a common trap is confusing zonal with regional failure. Remember that a region contains multiple zones, but a regional disaster takes down all zones in that area, so only a multi-region strategy provides true fault isolation. Memory tip: think “one region down, the world still goes round” to recall that global load balancing keeps traffic flowing across surviving regions.
Cloud Digital Leader Fundamental cloud concepts Practice Question
This GCDL practice question tests your understanding of fundamental cloud concepts. 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 solutions architect is designing a system that must remain available even if an entire Google Cloud region becomes unavailable due to a major disaster. Which deployment approach achieves this goal?
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
Deploying the application across multiple Google Cloud regions so that if one region fails, other regions continue serving traffic
Option C is correct because deploying across multiple Google Cloud regions ensures that if an entire region becomes unavailable, traffic can be rerouted to healthy regions, achieving disaster recovery across regional failures. This approach leverages Google Cloud's global load balancing (e.g., External HTTPS Load Balancer with backend services in multiple regions) and regional managed instance groups to maintain availability even when a complete region is lost.
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.
- ✗
Deploying the application across multiple zones within the same Google Cloud region
Why it's wrong here
Multiple zones within the same region protect against zone-level failures (hardware failures, localized outages) but not against region-level disasters. If the entire region goes down, all zones in it are affected.
- ✗
Using a single zone but enabling automatic VM restart policies
Why it's wrong here
Automatic restart within a single zone provides no protection against zone or region failure. If the zone is unavailable, restart policies cannot help.
- ✓
Deploying the application across multiple Google Cloud regions so that if one region fails, other regions continue serving traffic
Why this is correct
Multi-region deployment is required to survive a full regional outage. By running active or active-passive instances in multiple distinct geographic regions, the system continues operating when any single region fails. Each region is geographically and infrastructure-independently isolated.
Related concept
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
- ✗
Enabling Cloud Backup for all VMs in the deployment to allow rapid restoration after a regional failure
Why it's wrong here
Backup enables data restoration but requires recovery time (RTO). During the restoration period, the service is unavailable. Active multi-region deployment provides continuous availability with no restoration wait time.
Common exam traps
Common exam trap: answer the scenario, not the keyword
Google Cloud often tests the distinction between zonal and regional fault tolerance, and the trap here is that candidates confuse multi-zone deployment (which handles zonal failures) with multi-region deployment (which is required for regional disaster recovery).
Detailed technical explanation
How to think about this question
Google Cloud regions are isolated from each other by design, with independent networking, power, and cooling infrastructure. A multi-region deployment typically uses Global External HTTP(S) Load Balancing, which routes traffic based on the closest healthy backend region, and can automatically fail over to another region when health checks fail. Under the hood, this relies on Google's global anycast IP and the Envoy proxy-based load balancer, which can detect regional unavailability within seconds via health probes and shift traffic without manual intervention.
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.
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.
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FAQ
Questions learners often ask
What does this GCDL question test?
Fundamental cloud concepts — This question tests Fundamental cloud concepts — Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer..
What is the correct answer to this question?
The correct answer is: Deploying the application across multiple Google Cloud regions so that if one region fails, other regions continue serving traffic — Option C is correct because deploying across multiple Google Cloud regions ensures that if an entire region becomes unavailable, traffic can be rerouted to healthy regions, achieving disaster recovery across regional failures. This approach leverages Google Cloud's global load balancing (e.g., External HTTPS Load Balancer with backend services in multiple regions) and regional managed instance groups to maintain availability even when a complete region is lost.
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.
About these practice questions
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Last reviewed: Jun 30, 2026
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.
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