Google PCA Ensure solution and operations reliability Practice Question
This PCA practice question tests your understanding of ensure solution and operations reliability. 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 runs a stateful application on Compute Engine with persistent disks. They want to ensure data durability across a zone failure. What is the best approach?
Clue words in this question
Noticing these words before you look at the options changes how you read each choice.
Clue: "best"
Why it matters: Signals that multiple options may be partially correct. Choose the option that most directly solves the exact problem described, not the one that sounds most complete.
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
✓
Use regional persistent disks
Regional persistent disks (RPDs) synchronously replicate data between two zones in the same region, providing an RPO of zero and automatic failover without application-level changes. This ensures data durability across a zone failure while maintaining consistent performance and low latency.
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.
✗
Replicate data at application level to another instance in a different zone
Why it's wrong here
Application-level replication adds complexity and may not be feasible for legacy apps.
✗
Use Google Cloud NetApp Volumes with replication
Why it's wrong here
NetApp Volumes are a third-party solution and not the recommended native approach.
✓
Use regional persistent disks
Why this is correct
Regional PDs replicate data across zones with synchronous writes, ensuring durability.
Clue confirmation
The clue word "best" in the question point toward this answer.
Related concept
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
✗
Take regular snapshots of the persistent disks and store them in a multiregional bucket
Why it's wrong here
Snapshots provide point-in-time recovery, not continuous durability across zone failures.
Common exam traps
Common exam trap: answer the scenario, not the keyword
Google Cloud often tests the distinction between synchronous replication (regional persistent disks) and asynchronous backup (snapshots), leading candidates to choose snapshots for durability when they actually need zero RPO across a zone failure.
Detailed technical explanation
How to think about this question
Regional persistent disks use synchronous replication at the block level, meaning every write is committed to both zones before the write is acknowledged to the application. This provides strong consistency and an effective RPO of zero, but the application must be configured to use the disk from a single zone at a time; failover is typically handled by a managed instance group or a custom script. In a real-world scenario, if a zone outage occurs, the disk can be attached to a VM in the surviving zone without data loss, but the application must be designed to handle the brief interruption during failover.
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
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.
Ensure solution and operations reliability — This question tests Ensure solution and operations reliability — Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer..
What is the correct answer to this question?
The correct answer is: Use regional persistent disks — Regional persistent disks (RPDs) synchronously replicate data between two zones in the same region, providing an RPO of zero and automatic failover without application-level changes. This ensures data durability across a zone failure while maintaining consistent performance and low latency.
What should I do if I get this PCA question wrong?
Identify which exam domain this question belongs to, review the core concept, then practise similar questions from the same domain.
Are there clue words in this question I should notice?
Yes — watch for: "best". Signals that multiple options may be partially correct. Choose the option that most directly solves the exact problem described, not the one that sounds most complete.
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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