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GCP GCP-PCDE Free Practice Questions — Page 2

Professional Cloud Database Engineer • 5 questions • Answers & explanations included

Question 6

You are setting up a Bare Metal Solution environment. You need to update the operating system to the latest version. You need to connect the Bare Metal Solution environment to the internet so you can receive software updates. What should you do?

A. Setup a static external IP address in your VPC network.
B. Set up bring your own IP (BYOIP) in your VPC.
C. Set up a Cloud NAT gateway on the Compute Engine VM.
D. Set up Cloud NAT service.
Show Answer & Explanation

Correct Answer: D. Set up Cloud NAT service.

Bare Metal Solution environments are connected to Google Cloud via a Partner Interconnect into a VPC. To allow outbound internet access for OS updates without exposing the environment directly, Cloud NAT is the correct Google-recommended solution.D is correct because Cloud NAT provides outbound-only internet access for private instances (no public IP needed), which is exactly what's needed for software updates.C is wrong because Cloud NAT is configured at the VPC/router level, not on a specific Compute Engine VM — and Bare Metal Solution isn't a Compute Engine VM.A is wrong because a static external IP exposes the environment directly to the internet, which is a security risk.B is wrong because BYOIP is for bringing your own IP address ranges to Google Cloud, not for enabling internet access.

Question 7

Your organization is running a MySQL workload in Cloud SQL. Suddenly you see a degradation in database performance. You need to identify the root cause of the performance degradation. What should you do?

A. Use Logs Explorer to analyze log data.
B. Use Cloud Monitoring to monitor CPU, memory, and storage utilization metrics.
C. Use Error Reporting to count, analyze, and aggregate the data.
D. Use Cloud Debugger to inspect the state of an application.
Show Answer & Explanation

Correct Answer: B. Use Cloud Monitoring to monitor CPU, memory, and storage utilization metrics.

When Cloud SQL for MySQL experiences sudden performance degradation, the first step is to check resource utilization metrics — CPU, memory, and storage — using Cloud Monitoring, which provides pre-built dashboards for Cloud SQL.B is correct because Cloud Monitoring gives direct visibility into the infrastructure metrics that most commonly cause performance degradation, and is the Google-recommended starting point for diagnosis.A is wrong because Logs Explorer is useful for application/error logs, not for identifying resource bottlenecks.C is wrong because Error Reporting aggregates application errors, not database performance metrics.D is wrong because Cloud Debugger inspects application code state at runtime — it has no visibility into database performance.

Question 8

You work for a large retail and ecommerce company that is starting to extend their business globally. Your company plans to migrate to Google Cloud. You want to use platforms that will scale easily, handle transactions with the least amount of latency, and provide a reliable customer experience. You need a storage layer for sales transactions and current inventory levels. You want to retain the same relational schema that your existing platform uses. What should you do?

A. Store your data in Firestore in a multi-region location, and place your compute resources in one of the constituent regions.
B. Deploy Cloud Spanner using a multi-region instance, and place your compute resources close to the default leader region.
C. Build an in-memory cache in Memorystore, and deploy to the specific geographic regions where your application resides.
D. Deploy a Bigtable instance with a cluster in one region and a replica cluster in another geographic region.
Show Answer & Explanation

Correct Answer: B. Deploy Cloud Spanner using a multi-region instance, and place your compute resources close to the default leader region.

The requirement is: global scale, low-latency transactions, relational schema, high reliability. This maps directly to Cloud Spanner with a multi-region instance.B is correct because Cloud Spanner is the only Google Cloud database that combines horizontal scalability, global distribution, strong consistency, and a relational schema with SQL support — and placing compute near the default leader region minimizes write latency.A is wrong because Firestore is a NoSQL document store — it does not support relational schemas or SQL joins.C is wrong because Memorystore (Redis) is an in-memory cache, not a durable transactional database.D is wrong because Bigtable is a wide-column NoSQL store designed for analytics/time-series workloads, not relational transactional data.

Question 9

You host an application in Google Cloud. The application is located in a single region and uses Cloud SQL for transactional data. Most of your users are located in the same time zone and expect the application to be available 7 days a week, from 6 AM to 10 PM. You want to ensure regular maintenance updates to your Cloud SQL instance without creating downtime for your users. What should you do?

A. Configure a maintenance window during a period when no users will be on the system. Control the order of update by setting non-production instances to earlier and production instances to later.
B. Create your database with one primary node and one read replica in the region.
C. Enable maintenance notifications for users, and reschedule maintenance activities to a specific time after notifications have been sent.
D. Configure your Cloud SQL instance with high availability enabled.
Show Answer & Explanation

Correct Answer: A. Configure a maintenance window during a period when no users will be on the system. Control the order of update by setting non-production instances to earlier and production instances to later.

The goal is to schedule maintenance updates during a period when users are not active (outside 6 AM–10 PM) and control the update order between environments.A is correct because Cloud SQL allows you to configure a maintenance window (day + hour) and set maintenance timing preference (earlier for non-prod, later for prod) — this is exactly the Google-recommended approach.B is wrong because a read replica doesn't prevent maintenance downtime on the primary instance.C is wrong because rescheduling after notifications are sent is reactive, not proactive — and doesn't control the order between environments.D is wrong because HA enables automatic failover but doesn't control when maintenance happens or the order of updates across environments.

Question 10

Your team recently released a new version of a highly consumed application to accommodate additional user traffic. Shortly after the release, you received an alert from your production monitoring team that there is consistently high replication lag between your primary instance and the read replicas of your Cloud SQL for MySQL instances. You need to resolve the replication lag. What should you do?

A. Identify and optimize slow running queries, or set parallel replication flags.
B. Stop all running queries, and re-create the replicas.
C. Edit the primary instance to upgrade to a larger disk, and increase vCPU count.
D. Edit the primary instance to add additional memory.
Show Answer & Explanation

Correct Answer: A. Identify and optimize slow running queries, or set parallel replication flags.

Replication lag after a new application release typically indicates slow-running queries on the primary are creating a write backlog, or the replica can't keep up with the binary log. The fix is query optimization and/or enabling parallel replication flags on the replica.A is correct because slow queries increase write load on the primary, causing lag; parallel replication (slave_parallel_workers, slave_parallel_type) allows the replica to apply changes faster.B is wrong because stopping queries and re-creating replicas is destructive and doesn't address the root cause.C is wrong because upgrading disk and vCPU on the primary doesn't help the replica process changes faster.D is wrong because memory alone doesn't resolve replication lag caused by query or throughput issues.

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