This PCDOE practice question tests your understanding of optimizing service performance. 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 team is optimizing the performance of their application running on Cloud Run. They want to reduce cold starts. Which two actions would help? (Select TWO)
Enable min instances
Keeps a baseline of warm instances, avoiding cold starts.
Increase the maximum number of container instances
Why wrong: More instances don't reduce cold start latency.
Increase the CPU limit
Why wrong: Higher CPU speeds up processing but doesn't address cold start.
Use a custom container base image with reduced size
Smaller images boot faster.
Enable HTTP/2
Why wrong: HTTP/2 reduces overhead but not cold starts.
Answer choices
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
Enable min instances
Enabling min instances (option A) keeps a baseline number of container instances always warm and ready to serve requests, eliminating the cold start latency for those instances. This directly reduces the time required to spin up a new container when traffic spikes, as the pre-warmed instances can handle requests immediately.
Key principle: Answer the scenario, not the keyword: identify the specific constraint before choosing the most familiar-sounding option.
Answer analysis
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
Enable min instances
Why this is correct
Keeps a baseline of warm instances, avoiding cold starts.
Related concept
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
Increase the maximum number of container instances
Why it's wrong here
More instances don't reduce cold start latency.
Increase the CPU limit
Why it's wrong here
Higher CPU speeds up processing but doesn't address cold start.
Use a custom container base image with reduced size
Why this is correct
Smaller images boot faster.
Related concept
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
Enable HTTP/2
Why it's wrong here
HTTP/2 reduces overhead but not cold starts.
Common exam traps
Google Cloud often tests the misconception that increasing resource limits (like CPU or memory) or scaling parameters (like max instances) can reduce cold starts, when in fact only pre-warming instances (min instances) and reducing container image size (option D) directly address the startup latency.
Detailed technical explanation
Cloud Run's min instances feature works by keeping the specified number of container instances always running, even when there are no incoming requests, which incurs ongoing costs but guarantees zero cold start latency for those instances. Under the hood, each instance runs a Knative serving revision, and the scheduler ensures the minimum count is maintained by pre-allocating resources and keeping the container's entry point process alive. In a real-world scenario, a production API with variable traffic might set min instances to 2 to handle baseline load instantly, while still allowing scaling up to 10 max instances for spikes.
Key takeaway
Answer the scenario, not the keyword: identify the specific constraint before choosing the most familiar-sounding option.
Real-world example
A cloud solutions architect for a retail company is evaluating services for a new workload. The correct answer here reflects best practice for the specific scenario described — not a general cloud recommendation. Answer the scenario, not the keyword: identify the specific constraint before choosing the most familiar-sounding option. Cloud exam questions reward reading the constraint carefully: the same technology can be right or wrong depending on the use case.
What to study next
Identify which exam domain this question belongs to, review the core concept, then practise similar questions from the same domain.
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FAQ
Optimizing service performance — This question tests Optimizing service performance — Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer..
The correct answer is: Enable min instances — Enabling min instances (option A) keeps a baseline number of container instances always warm and ready to serve requests, eliminating the cold start latency for those instances. This directly reduces the time required to spin up a new container when traffic spikes, as the pre-warmed instances can handle requests immediately.
Identify which exam domain this question belongs to, review the core concept, then practise similar questions from the same domain.
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
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Last reviewed: Jun 30, 2026
This PCDOE practice question is part of Courseiva's free Google Cloud certification practice question bank. Courseiva provides original exam-style practice questions with explanations, topic-based practice, mock exams, readiness tracking, and study analytics to help learners prepare for the PCDOE exam.
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