Google PCA Manage and provision cloud infrastructure Practice Question
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 developer notices that web-server-1 is preemptible. They want to ensure their application remains available even if this instance is terminated. What should they do?
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
✓
Create a managed instance group for web-server-1 and set an autoscaler.
A managed instance group (MIG) with an autoscaler ensures that if the preemptible instance is terminated, the MIG automatically recreates it to maintain the desired number of instances. This provides resilience against preemption by restoring capacity without manual intervention. The load balancer can then distribute traffic across healthy instances in the group.
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.
✗
Modify the instance's preemptible flag to false.
Why it's wrong here
Preemptible flag is set at creation time and cannot be changed on a running instance.
✓
Create a managed instance group for web-server-1 and set an autoscaler.
Why this is correct
Managed instance groups automatically recreate instances, including preemptible ones, if they are terminated.
Related concept
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
✗
Create a load balancer pointing to web-server-1's external IP.
Snapshots preserve data but do not handle instance recreation.
Common exam traps
Common exam trap: answer the scenario, not the keyword
Google Cloud often tests the misconception that a load balancer alone provides high availability, but without a managed instance group to recreate terminated instances, the load balancer has no healthy backends to route traffic to.
Detailed technical explanation
How to think about this question
A MIG uses an instance template to define the VM configuration and can be configured with autohealing (based on health checks) and autoscaling (based on load metrics). When a preemptible instance is terminated after 24 hours or due to capacity constraints, the MIG's regional or zonal managed instance group controller detects the missing instance and launches a replacement using the template. The autoscaler can also adjust the number of instances based on CPU utilization or other metrics, ensuring capacity matches demand even during preemption events.
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
An e-commerce site experiences heavy traffic on Black Friday and near-zero traffic during off-peak weeks. Rather than provisioning permanent large VMs, the team uses auto-scaling groups that add capacity automatically under load and reduce it overnight. Questions like this test whether you understand elasticity, availability zones, and cloud compute scaling patterns.
Related glossary terms
Concepts from this question explained
These glossary pages explain the core terms tested in this PCA question in full detail.
Manage and provision cloud infrastructure — This question tests Manage and provision cloud infrastructure — Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer..
What is the correct answer to this question?
The correct answer is: Create a managed instance group for web-server-1 and set an autoscaler. — A managed instance group (MIG) with an autoscaler ensures that if the preemptible instance is terminated, the MIG automatically recreates it to maintain the desired number of instances. This provides resilience against preemption by restoring capacity without manual intervention. The load balancer can then distribute traffic across healthy instances in the group.
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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