PCSE Practice Question: Configuring access within a cloud solution environment
This PCSE practice question tests your understanding of configuring access within a cloud solution environment. 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 has two Google Cloud projects: Project A (production) and Project B (development). They want to allow a service account in Project B to list Compute Engine instances in Project A. What is the most secure way to grant this access?
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
✓
Add the service account as a member in Project A's IAM policy with the roles/compute.viewer role.
Option B is correct because it uses IAM to grant the service account from Project B the roles/compute.viewer role on Project A, which allows it to list Compute Engine instances without sharing keys or granting excessive permissions. This follows the principle of least privilege and avoids the security risks of key management.
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.
✗
Create a new service account in Project A, generate a key, and share it with the application in Project B.
Why it's wrong here
Generating and sharing keys is insecure and not recommended.
✓
Add the service account as a member in Project A's IAM policy with the roles/compute.viewer role.
Why this is correct
This grants only the necessary permissions to the service account without exposing credentials.
Related concept
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
✗
Make the service account a project owner of Project A.
Why it's wrong here
Project owner is overly permissive and violates the principle of least privilege.
✗
Export the service account key from Project B and use it in an application in Project A.
Why it's wrong here
Exporting keys and sharing them across projects is insecure and against best practices.
Common exam traps
Common exam trap: answer the scenario, not the keyword
The trap here is that candidates often think service accounts can only access resources within their own project, or they mistakenly believe that sharing keys is the only way to grant cross-project access, ignoring IAM's ability to grant roles to principals from other projects.
Detailed technical explanation
How to think about this question
Under the hood, IAM policies are evaluated at access time using the resource's IAM policy, not the caller's project. When a service account from Project B calls the Compute Engine API to list instances in Project A, the request is authorized based on the IAM policy attached to Project A (or the specific resource), which includes the service account's email as a member with roles/compute.viewer. This works because IAM supports cross-project resource access by allowing principals from other projects to be granted roles on a resource. A real-world scenario is a centralized monitoring service account in a separate project that needs read-only access to production instances across multiple projects.
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 company's IT admin needs to give a contractor read-only access to production logs without sharing account credentials. Using role-based access control (RBAC) and temporary scoped permissions — not a permanent shared password — is the correct pattern. Questions like this test whether you can apply least-privilege access across cloud identity services.
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.
Configuring access within a cloud solution environment — This question tests Configuring access within a cloud solution environment — Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer..
What is the correct answer to this question?
The correct answer is: Add the service account as a member in Project A's IAM policy with the roles/compute.viewer role. — Option B is correct because it uses IAM to grant the service account from Project B the roles/compute.viewer role on Project A, which allows it to list Compute Engine instances without sharing keys or granting excessive permissions. This follows the principle of least privilege and avoids the security risks of key management.
What should I do if I get this PCSE 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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