PCDE Plan and manage database infrastructure Practice Question
This PCDE practice question tests your understanding of plan and manage database infrastructure. This is a configuration task: choose the command set that satisfies every stated requirement. Small differences — like 'secret' vs 'password' or 'transport input ssh' vs 'all' — change whether the answer is correct. 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 team is designing a disaster recovery plan for a Cloud SQL for PostgreSQL instance. The RPO is 5 minutes and RTO is 1 hour. Which configuration meets these requirements?
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
✓
Configure a cross-region read replica with point-in-time recovery (PITR) to enable failover
Option D meets the RPO of 5 minutes and RTO of 1 hour because a cross-region read replica with point-in-time recovery (PITR) allows you to failover to a replica in another region, minimizing data loss to within seconds (PITR can recover to any point in time within the retention window) and promoting the replica typically completes within minutes, well under the 1-hour RTO. This configuration provides both disaster recovery across regions and granular recovery to meet the strict RPO.
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.
✗
Schedule daily exports to Cloud Storage and import in another region
Why it's wrong here
Daily backups exceed 5-minute RPO and RTO would be hours.
✗
Enable automatic failover within the same region using HA configuration
Why it's wrong here
HA within same region does not protect against region-wide outage.
✗
Create a read replica in the same region and promote it during disaster
Why it's wrong here
Read replica in same region doesn't survive region failure.
✓
Configure a cross-region read replica with point-in-time recovery (PITR) to enable failover
Why this is correct
Cross-region replica provides region failover; PITR allows recovery to any point within the backup window.
Related concept
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
Common exam traps
Common exam trap: answer the scenario, not the keyword
Google Cloud often tests the distinction between high availability (HA) within a region and disaster recovery (DR) across regions, and the trap here is that candidates confuse automatic failover in the same region (Option B) with cross-region DR, failing to realize that HA does not protect against a full regional outage.
Detailed technical explanation
How to think about this question
Cross-region read replicas in Cloud SQL for PostgreSQL use asynchronous replication with a replication lag typically under a few seconds, which, combined with PITR (which uses WAL archives in Cloud Storage), allows recovery to any point within the retention window (default 7 days). During a disaster, you promote the replica to a standalone instance, which breaks replication and makes it writable; the promotion process usually completes in 2–5 minutes, and you can then redirect traffic via DNS or a load balancer. A real-world scenario is a regional outage affecting us-central1; a cross-region replica in us-east1 can be promoted, and PITR can recover transactions committed just before the outage, keeping data loss to seconds.
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.
What to study next
Got this wrong? Here's your next step.
Identify which exam domain this question belongs to, review the core concept, then practise similar questions from the same domain.
Plan and manage database infrastructure — This question tests Plan and manage database infrastructure — Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer..
What is the correct answer to this question?
The correct answer is: Configure a cross-region read replica with point-in-time recovery (PITR) to enable failover — Option D meets the RPO of 5 minutes and RTO of 1 hour because a cross-region read replica with point-in-time recovery (PITR) allows you to failover to a replica in another region, minimizing data loss to within seconds (PITR can recover to any point in time within the retention window) and promoting the replica typically completes within minutes, well under the 1-hour RTO. This configuration provides both disaster recovery across regions and granular recovery to meet the strict RPO.
What should I do if I get this PCDE 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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