Google PCA Design and plan a cloud solution architecture Practice Question
This PCA practice question tests your understanding of design and plan a cloud solution architecture. 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 wants to deploy a stateful application with strict low-latency requirements across multiple zones in a single region. They need to minimize inter-zone latency. Which THREE actions should they take? (Choose 3)
Clue words in this question
Noticing these words before you look at the options changes how you read each choice.
Clue: "minimum / minimize"
Why it matters: Asks for the least resource use — fewest addresses, smallest subnet, lowest overhead. Eliminate over-provisioned options even if they would technically work.
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
✓
Place application instances in the same zone to minimize network hops
Option A is correct because placing all application instances in the same zone eliminates cross-zone network hops, which directly reduces inter-zone latency to near zero. For a stateful application with strict low-latency requirements, this co-location ensures that traffic between instances stays within a single failure domain, avoiding the additional latency introduced by traversing zone boundaries.
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.
✓
Place application instances in the same zone to minimize network hops
Why this is correct
Same zone reduces latency.
Clue confirmation
The clue word "minimum / minimize" in the question point toward this answer.
Related concept
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
✓
Use zonal SSD persistent disks
Why this is correct
SSD provides low latency.
Clue confirmation
The clue word "minimum / minimize" in the question point toward this answer.
Related concept
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
✗
Deploy instances in a managed instance group across multiple zones
Why it's wrong here
Cross-zone instances increase latency.
✓
Use a regional internal TCP/UDP load balancer
Why this is correct
Internal LB provides low-latency load balancing within region.
Clue confirmation
The clue word "minimum / minimize" in the question point toward this answer.
Related concept
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
✗
Use Dedicated Interconnect for on-premises connection
Why it's wrong here
Not applicable to intra-region latency.
Common exam traps
Common exam trap: answer the scenario, not the keyword
The trap here is that candidates often assume multi-zone deployment is always required for high availability, but the question explicitly prioritizes minimizing inter-zone latency, making same-zone placement the correct choice despite the trade-off in fault tolerance.
Detailed technical explanation
How to think about this question
Under the hood, Google Cloud zones are isolated failure domains with separate power and cooling, and network traffic between zones typically incurs a latency penalty of 1-5 ms due to physical distance and routing through regional gateways. In contrast, intra-zone traffic uses local switching within the same data center, achieving sub-millisecond latency. For stateful applications like in-memory databases or real-time trading systems, this difference can be critical for meeting strict latency SLAs.
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 healthcare organisation deploys an application with a public-facing web tier and a private database tier. The database subnet has no public IP and only accepts connections from the web tier's security group. Questions like this test whether you can design cloud network isolation using VNets/VPCs, subnets, and security group rules.
Related glossary terms
Concepts from this question explained
These glossary pages explain the core terms tested in this PCA question in full detail.
Design and plan a cloud solution architecture — This question tests Design and plan 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: Place application instances in the same zone to minimize network hops — Option A is correct because placing all application instances in the same zone eliminates cross-zone network hops, which directly reduces inter-zone latency to near zero. For a stateful application with strict low-latency requirements, this co-location ensures that traffic between instances stays within a single failure domain, avoiding the additional latency introduced by traversing zone boundaries.
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: "minimum / minimize". Asks for the least resource use — fewest addresses, smallest subnet, lowest overhead. Eliminate over-provisioned options even if they would technically work.
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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