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 DevOps engineer notices that a GKE cluster has nodes that are frequently preempted. They want to reduce costs but maintain resilience. 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
✓
Use a regional cluster with multiple zones
A regional cluster with multiple zones distributes workloads across zones, so if nodes in one zone are preempted, the cluster remains resilient by using nodes in other zones. This reduces costs by allowing the use of preemptible VMs (which are cheaper) while maintaining high availability, as the cluster can tolerate zone-level failures. The key is that regional clusters provide a managed control plane and node distribution across zones, which is essential for resilience against preemption.
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 node auto-repair
Why it's wrong here
Node auto-repair replaces unhealthy nodes but does not prevent preemption.
✗
Use preemptible VMs for all nodes
Why it's wrong here
Preemptible VMs are cheaper but more likely to be preempted, worsening the issue.
✗
Use committed use discounts
Why it's wrong here
Committed use discounts reduce costs but do not mitigate preemption events.
✓
Use a regional cluster with multiple zones
Why this is correct
Regional clusters distribute nodes across zones, improving resilience to zone-level preemption.
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 that candidates may think preemptible VMs are inherently unreliable and thus avoid them entirely, or they may confuse node auto-repair (which fixes health issues) with resilience against preemption, missing the key benefit of a regional architecture that distributes risk across zones.
Detailed technical explanation
How to think about this question
GKE regional clusters use a replicated control plane across multiple zones, and nodes can be deployed in each zone. When preemptible VMs are used in a regional cluster, the cluster autoscaler can automatically replace preempted nodes in other zones, leveraging the fact that preemption events are often zone-specific. Under the hood, GKE uses the Kubernetes node controller and cluster autoscaler to manage node pools, and preemptible VMs have a maximum lifetime of 24 hours but can be terminated earlier; a regional setup ensures that not all nodes are preempted at once, maintaining quorum for workloads.
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 startup's cloud architect reviews their monthly bill and notices costs are higher than expected for a long-running batch job. Switching from on-demand instances to Reserved Instances — or using Spot/Preemptible VMs — can reduce compute costs by up to 72 %. Questions like this test whether you understand the tradeoffs between commitment, flexibility, and cost across cloud pricing models.
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: Use a regional cluster with multiple zones — A regional cluster with multiple zones distributes workloads across zones, so if nodes in one zone are preempted, the cluster remains resilient by using nodes in other zones. This reduces costs by allowing the use of preemptible VMs (which are cheaper) while maintaining high availability, as the cluster can tolerate zone-level failures. The key is that regional clusters provide a managed control plane and node distribution across zones, which is essential for resilience against preemption.
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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