Google PCA Practice Question: Designing and Planning a Cloud Solution Architecture
This PCA practice question tests your understanding of designing and planning a cloud solution architecture. The scenario asks you to isolate a root cause — eliminate options that address a different problem before choosing. 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 runs a critical application on Compute Engine that must remain available even if an entire zone fails. They have configured a managed instance group across three zones with autoscaling based on CPU utilization. The application state is stored in a Cloud SQL instance. Which additional step should they take to ensure high availability?
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
✓
Configure a regional Cloud SQL instance with primary and standby in different zones.
Cloud SQL provides high availability with a standby instance in a different zone using regional persistent disk. This ensures failover if the primary zone fails.
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.
✗
Use a Cloud Load Balancer in front of the managed instance group.
Why it's wrong here
Already implied; does not address database availability.
✓
Configure a regional Cloud SQL instance with primary and standby in different zones.
Why this is correct
Regional Cloud SQL provides automatic failover across zones, matching the compute layer's zone redundancy.
Related concept
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
✗
Deploy a read replica of the Cloud SQL instance in another region.
Why it's wrong here
Read replica is for read scaling, not automatic failover; also not cross-zone.
✗
Take frequent snapshots of the boot disk and store them in a multi-regional bucket.
Why it's wrong here
Snapshots are not a high-availability solution; recovery time is too long.
Common exam traps
Common exam trap: answer the scenario, not the keyword
Many certification questions include familiar terms but test a specific constraint. Read the exact wording before choosing an answer that is generally true but wrong for this case.
Detailed technical explanation
How to think about this question
This question should be treated as a scenario, not a definition check. Identify the problem, the constraint and the best action. Then compare each option against those facts.
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.
Use explanations to understand the rule behind the answer.
TExam Day Tips
→Underline the problem statement mentally.
→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 media company stores terabytes of video archives that are accessed once a year for audit purposes. Moving these objects to a cold storage tier (Azure Archive, S3 Glacier, or Google Nearline) costs a fraction of hot storage. Questions like this test whether you understand storage tiers, access frequency tradeoffs, and retrieval latency requirements.
Related glossary terms
Concepts from this question explained
These glossary pages explain the core terms tested in this PCA question in full detail.
Identify which PCA exam domain this question belongs to, then review the specific concept being tested. Practise related questions in that domain and focus on understanding why each wrong answer is tempting — not just why the correct answer is right.
Designing and Planning a Cloud Solution Architecture — This question tests Designing and Planning a Cloud Solution Architecture — Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer..
What is the correct answer to this question?
The correct answer is: Configure a regional Cloud SQL instance with primary and standby in different zones. — Cloud SQL provides high availability with a standby instance in a different zone using regional persistent disk. This ensures failover if the primary zone fails.
What should I do if I get this PCA question wrong?
Identify which PCA exam domain this question belongs to, then review the specific concept being tested. Practise related questions in that domain and focus on understanding why each wrong answer is tempting — not just why the correct answer is right.
What is the key concept behind this question?
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
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Question Discussion
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