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 workload on Compute Engine with regional persistent disks (PD). They need to implement a disaster recovery (DR) plan with a Recovery Point Objective (RPO) of less than 1 hour and Recovery Time Objective (RTO) of less than 4 hours. Which THREE steps should they include in their DR plan? (Choose three.)
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
✓
Take snapshots of the persistent disk every 30 minutes and copy them to a Cloud Storage bucket in another region
Option A is correct because taking snapshots every 30 minutes meets the RPO of less than 1 hour. By copying these snapshots to a Cloud Storage bucket in another region, you ensure data is available in a DR region for recovery, which is essential for cross-region disaster recovery.
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.
✓
Take snapshots of the persistent disk every 30 minutes and copy them to a Cloud Storage bucket in another region
Why this is correct
Correct: meets RPO and protects against regional failure.
Related concept
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
✗
Create a snapshot schedule for the persistent disk every 4 hours
Why it's wrong here
Incorrect: 4-hour RPO exceeds 1 hour requirement.
✓
Create a custom machine image of the instance and store it in a Cloud Storage bucket in the DR region
Why this is correct
Correct: ensures VM configuration can be restored in DR region.
Related concept
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
✗
Use regional persistent disks to automatically replicate data to a second zone
Why it's wrong here
Incorrect: regional PD is within region, not cross-region DR.
✓
Test the failover procedure quarterly to validate RTO and RPO
Why this is correct
Correct: regular testing ensures plan works.
Related concept
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
Common exam traps
Common exam trap: answer the scenario, not the keyword
The trap here is confusing zonal replication (regional PD) with cross-region disaster recovery; regional PDs only protect against zonal failures, not regional outages, so they cannot meet a cross-region DR requirement.
Detailed technical explanation
How to think about this question
Snapshots are incremental and stored in Cloud Storage, allowing cost-effective cross-region replication. The RPO of less than 1 hour requires snapshot frequency of at least every 30 minutes, as the maximum data loss is the interval between snapshots. Custom machine images capture the instance's boot disk and metadata, enabling rapid instance recreation in the DR region, which supports the RTO of less than 4 hours when combined with automated deployment scripts.
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: Take snapshots of the persistent disk every 30 minutes and copy them to a Cloud Storage bucket in another region — Option A is correct because taking snapshots every 30 minutes meets the RPO of less than 1 hour. By copying these snapshots to a Cloud Storage bucket in another region, you ensure data is available in a DR region for recovery, which is essential for cross-region disaster recovery.
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.
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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