This PCA practice question tests your understanding of manage and provision cloud infrastructure. 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 deploys a web application on Compute Engine behind a Global HTTPS Load Balancer. They need to restrict access to the application based on the client's IP address. Which Google Cloud service should they use?
VPC firewall rules
Why wrong: Firewall rules protect GCP resources, not the load balancer's frontend.
Identity-Aware Proxy (IAP)
Why wrong: IAP uses identity for access, not IP addresses.
Cloud Armor
Cloud Armor provides IP-based access control and DDoS protection for load balancers.
Cloud CDN
Why wrong: Cloud CDN caches content, does not restrict access by IP.
Answer choices
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
Cloud Armor
Cloud Armor is the correct choice because it provides IP-based access control at the edge of Google's network, integrated directly with the Global HTTPS Load Balancer. It allows you to create security policies with IP allow/deny rules that are evaluated before traffic reaches your Compute Engine instances, making it the appropriate service for client IP restriction at the load balancer level.
Key principle: Answer the scenario, not the keyword: identify the specific constraint before choosing the most familiar-sounding option.
Answer analysis
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
VPC firewall rules
Why it's wrong here
Firewall rules protect GCP resources, not the load balancer's frontend.
Identity-Aware Proxy (IAP)
Why it's wrong here
IAP uses identity for access, not IP addresses.
Cloud Armor
Why this is correct
Cloud Armor provides IP-based access control and DDoS protection for load balancers.
Related concept
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
Cloud CDN
Why it's wrong here
Cloud CDN caches content, does not restrict access by IP.
Common exam traps
The trap here is that candidates often confuse VPC firewall rules with edge security, not realizing that VPC firewall rules cannot see the original client IP when a Global Load Balancer is in front, making Cloud Armor the only option for IP-based access control at the load balancer level.
Detailed technical explanation
Cloud Armor security policies are evaluated at the Google Front End (GFE) before traffic reaches the backend, using the original client IP address preserved in the X-Forwarded-For header. Policies support both allow and deny rules with optional rate limiting, and can be combined with pre-configured WAF rules (e.g., OWASP Top 10) for layered defense. In a real-world scenario, you might use Cloud Armor to block traffic from specific geographic regions or known malicious IP ranges while still allowing legitimate users through the Global HTTPS Load Balancer.
Key takeaway
Answer the scenario, not the keyword: identify the specific constraint before choosing the most familiar-sounding option.
Real-world example
A company's IT admin needs to give a contractor read-only access to production logs without sharing account credentials. Using role-based access control (RBAC) and temporary scoped permissions — not a permanent shared password — is the correct pattern. Questions like this test whether you can apply least-privilege access across cloud identity services.
What to study next
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FAQ
Manage and provision cloud infrastructure — This question tests Manage and provision cloud infrastructure — Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer..
The correct answer is: Cloud Armor — Cloud Armor is the correct choice because it provides IP-based access control at the edge of Google's network, integrated directly with the Global HTTPS Load Balancer. It allows you to create security policies with IP allow/deny rules that are evaluated before traffic reaches your Compute Engine instances, making it the appropriate service for client IP restriction at the load balancer level.
Identify which exam domain this question belongs to, review the core concept, then practise similar questions from the same domain.
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
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Last reviewed: Jun 11, 2026
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