The answer is to deploy two Cloud VPN tunnels from two Cloud Routers with BGP sessions to the peer VPN device. This configuration ensures high availability IPsec VPN to a third-party SaaS by placing the Cloud Routers in different zones for physical redundancy, while BGP dynamically advertises routes and performs automatic failover by detecting tunnel health through keepalive messages. On the Google Professional Cloud Network Engineer exam, this scenario tests your understanding of Cloud VPN design patterns, specifically that a single tunnel or static routing cannot meet high availability requirements because they lack automatic path switching. A common trap is choosing a single Cloud Router with two tunnels, which still creates a single point of failure for BGP session termination. Memory tip: think “two routers, two zones, BGP for brains”—the routers provide the hardware redundancy, and BGP provides the intelligent, automated failover logic.
PCNE Implementing a Virtual Private Cloud Practice Question
This PCNE practice question tests your understanding of implementing a virtual private cloud. Match the stated requirement to the specific cloud service, access model, or configuration option — many options are valid in isolation but not for this scenario. 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 company is migrating its on-premises infrastructure to Google Cloud. They need to connect their VPC to a third-party SaaS provider that only supports IPsec VPN. The company requires high availability and automatic failover. Which solution should they implement?
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
✓
Deploy two Cloud VPN tunnels from two Cloud Routers with BGP sessions to the peer VPN device.
Option A is correct because deploying two Cloud VPN tunnels from two Cloud Routers with BGP sessions provides high availability and automatic failover. The two Cloud Routers in different zones ensure redundancy, and BGP (Border Gateway Protocol) dynamically advertises routes and detects tunnel failures, allowing traffic to automatically switch to the healthy tunnel without manual intervention. This meets the requirement for an IPsec VPN connection to a third-party SaaS provider that only supports IPsec VPN.
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.
✓
Deploy two Cloud VPN tunnels from two Cloud Routers with BGP sessions to the peer VPN device.
Why this is correct
This provides HA with automatic failover via BGP; Cloud Routers enable dynamic routing and fast convergence.
Related concept
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
✗
Use Dedicated Interconnect with VLAN attachments to the SaaS provider.
Why it's wrong here
Dedicated Interconnect is a direct physical connection, not IPsecVPN, and may not be supported by the SaaS provider.
✗
Deploy a Classic VPN tunnel with policy-based routing.
Why it's wrong here
Classic VPN does not support BGP dynamic routing, so failover is not automatic.
✗
Deploy a single Cloud VPN tunnel and use static routing.
Why it's wrong here
Static routing does not support automatic failover; single tunnel is a single point of failure.
Common exam traps
Common exam trap: answer the scenario, not the keyword
The trap here is that candidates often assume Dedicated Interconnect is always superior for high availability, but the question explicitly requires IPsecVPN, and Interconnect does not support IPsec VPN, making it an invalid choice despite its high availability features.
Detailed technical explanation
How to think about this question
Under the hood, Cloud VPN with Cloud Router uses BGP to establish dynamic routing sessions over IPsec tunnels, enabling route advertisement and withdrawal upon tunnel failure. The two Cloud Routers are deployed in different zones (e.g., us-central1-a and us-central1-b) to provide zone-level redundancy, and each router establishes a separate BGP session with the peer VPN device. In a real-world scenario, if one tunnel goes down due to a zone outage or network issue, BGP withdraws the routes for that tunnel, and traffic automatically shifts to the remaining tunnel, achieving sub-second failover.
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.
Implementing a Virtual Private Cloud — This question tests Implementing a Virtual Private Cloud — Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer..
What is the correct answer to this question?
The correct answer is: Deploy two Cloud VPN tunnels from two Cloud Routers with BGP sessions to the peer VPN device. — Option A is correct because deploying two Cloud VPN tunnels from two Cloud Routers with BGP sessions provides high availability and automatic failover. The two Cloud Routers in different zones ensure redundancy, and BGP (Border Gateway Protocol) dynamically advertises routes and detects tunnel failures, allowing traffic to automatically switch to the healthy tunnel without manual intervention. This meets the requirement for an IPsec VPN connection to a third-party SaaS provider that only supports IPsec VPN.
What should I do if I get this PCNE 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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This PCNE 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 PCNE exam.
Question Discussion
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