PCDE Plan and manage database infrastructure Practice Question
This PCDE practice question tests your understanding of plan and manage database 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.
Your organization uses Cloud Spanner for a global financial application. You are designing a backup and disaster recovery strategy. Which THREE considerations are important for meeting RPO of 1 hour and RTO of 2 hours?
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
✓
Enable point-in-time recovery (PITR) with a 7-day retention.
Option A is correct because Cloud Spanner's point-in-time recovery (PITR) allows you to restore the database to any point within the retention window (up to 7 days). With a 1-hour RPO, PITR can recover data to within the last hour, meeting the requirement without needing separate backup jobs. PITR is built into Spanner and does not require external scheduling or storage.
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.
✓
Enable point-in-time recovery (PITR) with a 7-day retention.
Why this is correct
PITR allows recovery to any point within the retention period, meeting RPO.
Related concept
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
✓
Schedule incremental backups every hour using Cloud Scheduler.
Why this is correct
Spanner supports incremental backups at database level, can be automated.
Related concept
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
✓
Configure a multi-region Spanner instance to survive a regional outage.
Why this is correct
Multi-region instances provide automatic failover for DR.
Related concept
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
✗
Store backups in a multi-regional Cloud Storage bucket.
Why it's wrong here
Spanner backups are stored within the instance's location; you can export to Cloud Storage but that is separate.
✗
Set up read replicas in a different region for failover.
Why it's wrong here
Spanner does not use read replicas; multi-region instances handle failover.
Common exam traps
Common exam trap: answer the scenario, not the keyword
Google Cloud often tests the misconception that incremental backups or read replicas are viable for Spanner's disaster recovery, but Spanner relies on PITR and multi-region synchronous replication instead.
Detailed technical explanation
How to think about this question
Cloud Spanner's PITR uses system-managed transaction logs to enable restoration to any timestamp within the retention period, with a default 7-day window. Multi-region instances use synchronous Paxos-based replication across regions, ensuring strong consistency and automatic failover without manual intervention. Backups in Spanner are full database exports that can be restored to a new instance, but they are not incremental and require separate scheduling.
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: Enable point-in-time recovery (PITR) with a 7-day retention. — Option A is correct because Cloud Spanner's point-in-time recovery (PITR) allows you to restore the database to any point within the retention window (up to 7 days). With a 1-hour RPO, PITR can recover data to within the last hour, meeting the requirement without needing separate backup jobs. PITR is built into Spanner and does not require external scheduling or storage.
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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