PCDE Plan and manage database infrastructure Practice Question
This PCDE practice question tests your understanding of plan and manage database infrastructure. The scenario asks you to isolate a root cause — eliminate options that address a different problem before choosing. 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.
You are designing a highly available Cloud SQL for MySQL architecture. Which TWO components are essential?
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
✓
High availability (HA) configuration with a standby zone
A is correct because Cloud SQL for MySQL High Availability (HA) configuration provisions a standby instance in a different zone within the same region, enabling automatic failover with minimal downtime. B is correct because regional persistent disks replicate data synchronously across two zones, ensuring data durability and availability even if an entire zone fails, which is a prerequisite for HA.
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.
✓
High availability (HA) configuration with a standby zone
Why this is correct
HA provides automatic failover to a standby instance in another zone.
Related concept
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
✓
Regional persistent disk
Why this is correct
Regional PD synchronously replicates data across zones, ensuring data availability.
Related concept
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
✗
Point-in-time recovery (PITR)
Why it's wrong here
PITR is a backup feature, not an HA component.
✗
Read replicas in the same region
Why it's wrong here
Read replicas do not provide automatic failover for high availability.
✗
Cross-region replication
Why it's wrong here
Cross-region replication is for disaster recovery, not for high availability within a region.
Common exam traps
Common exam trap: answer the scenario, not the keyword
The trap here is that candidates often confuse high availability features (like automatic failover and zone redundancy) with disaster recovery or backup features (like PITR or cross-region replication), leading them to select options that improve data protection but do not ensure continuous uptime within a single region.
Detailed technical explanation
How to think about this question
Under the hood, Cloud SQL HA uses a synchronous replication mechanism between the primary and standby instances via regional persistent disks, which are block devices that replicate writes to both zones before acknowledging the write. During a zone failure, the standby instance automatically takes over using the same persistent disk, preserving data consistency without requiring manual intervention. In a real-world scenario, if the primary zone experiences a power outage, the HA configuration triggers a failover in under 60 seconds, while the regional persistent disk ensures no data loss.
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.
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: High availability (HA) configuration with a standby zone — A is correct because Cloud SQL for MySQL High Availability (HA) configuration provisions a standby instance in a different zone within the same region, enabling automatic failover with minimal downtime. B is correct because regional persistent disks replicate data synchronously across two zones, ensuring data durability and availability even if an entire zone fails, which is a prerequisite for HA.
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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