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Google Cloud Professional Cloud Architect Free Sample Questions

Description

Covers designing cloud solution architecture for business and technical requirements, provisioning network, storage, and compute, security and compliance design, and operational excellence.

12 free sample questions190 in the full practice test Other version: PCA(440)

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GCP-PCA Sample Questions

  1. Question 1

    Advanced

    Designing and Planning a Cloud Solution Architecture · Designing a solution infrastructure that meets business requirements

    A multinational financial institution is designing a low-latency trading platform. The architecture requires sub-millisecond processing times for transaction data ingestion and immediate consistency for account balances across three global regions (US, Europe, Asia). The solution must handle regional outages without manual intervention and provide 99.999% availability. Which data architecture provides the optimal balance of consistency, availability, and global scale?

    Answer and explanation

    Correct answer: C

    Cloud Spanner is the only service that offers strong global consistency (external consistency) via TrueTime, high availability (99.999% for multi-region), and horizontal scalability. It is specifically designed for financial ledger use cases requiring immediate consistency across regions. Bigtable offers eventual consistency. Cloud SQL promotion is manual or slower (RTO > 0) and does not offer active-active global writes with strong consistency.

  2. Question 2

    Intermediate

    Designing and Planning a Cloud Solution Architecture · Designing network, storage, and compute resources

    You are advising a healthcare provider on a hybrid network design. They require a dedicated 20 Gbps connection between their on-premises datacenter and Google Cloud to transfer sensitive patient records. Compliance regulations mandate that all traffic must be encrypted at the wire level, and the connection must not traverse the public internet. Which connectivity solution meets these strict requirements?

    Answer and explanation

    Correct answer: A

    Dedicated Interconnect provides private, high-bandwidth (10 Gbps or 100 Gbps) connectivity. To meet the requirement of wire-level encryption without using the public internet, MACsec (Media Access Control Security) is the supported method for securing traffic directly on the Interconnect link. HA VPN over Interconnect is another option but adds IPsec overhead; MACsec is layer 2 encryption specifically for high-speed protection.

  3. Question 3

    Advanced

    Designing and Planning a Cloud Solution Architecture · Designing a solution infrastructure that meets technical requirements

    A media company wants to utilize Generative AI to summarize internal legal documents. These documents are stored in Cloud Storage buckets in the europe-west1 region. Strict data residency laws prohibit the data from leaving the region, and no traffic is allowed to traverse the public internet. How should you architect the Vertex AI integration?

    Answer and explanation

    Correct answer: B

    To satisfy the requirements: 1) Private Service Connect (PSC) allows private consumption of services without traversing the public internet. 2) The Organization Policy constraint gcp.resourceLocations ensures all resources and processing remain within europe-west1, satisfying data residency. VPC Service Controls augment this but PSC + Org Policy is the direct architectural answer for connectivity and residency.

  4. Question 4

    Intermediate

    Designing and Planning a Cloud Solution Architecture · Workload disposition strategies

    Your organization is adopting a 'Cloud First' strategy but has a legacy monolithic application running on an unsupported OS kernel that cannot be refactored immediately. The application requires a specific layer-2 network configuration and high-performance block storage. Which migration path minimizes operational change while moving to Google Cloud?

    Answer and explanation

    Correct answer: C

    Google Cloud VMware Engine (GCVE) is ideal for legacy workloads that require specific kernel support, Layer 2 networking, or cannot be refactored. It allows you to run a native VMware stack in Google Cloud, preserving the existing operating model and OS configurations without modification.

  5. Question 5

    Intermediate

    Designing for Security and Compliance · Securing software supply chain

    You are designing a secure software supply chain for a fintech application on GKE. You must ensure that only container images that have been scanned for vulnerabilities and digitally signed by your CI/CD pipeline are allowed to run. How should you enforce this requirement?

    Answer and explanation

    Correct answer: B

    Binary Authorization is a deploy-time security control that ensures only trusted container images are deployed to GKE. By configuring an Attestor, the system verifies that specific requirements (like passing a vulnerability scan and being signed) are met before the image is allowed to run. This enforces the secure supply chain requirement technically, rather than just via policy.

  6. Question 6

    Beginner

    Managing and Provisioning a Solution Infrastructure · Configuring individual storage systems

    A retail company needs to store 3 years of transaction logs for auditing purposes. The data is rarely accessed (once per year) but must be available immediately if requested by auditors. There is a strict budget constraint. Which storage class and lifecycle configuration should you recommend?

    Answer and explanation

    Correct answer: D

    Coldline Storage is designed for data accessed less than once a quarter, offering a lower storage cost than Nearline/Standard but with millisecond access times (unlike Archive which can have higher retrieval costs or be intended for >1 year storage with very low access). While Archive is cheaper for storage, the 'once per year' access fits Coldline well if the retention is exactly 3 years, but Archive is also a strong contender. However, for 'auditing' which implies potential urgency, Coldline is the safer balance. Wait—Archive also has millisecond access in GCP (unlike AWS Glacier). However, Archive has a 365-day minimum storage duration. Given 'rarely accessed (once per year)' and strict budget, Archive is actually the MOST cost-effective. Let's re-evaluate. Actually, Archive is best for data accessed less than once a year. If it's accessed 'once per year', Archive is valid. BUT, looking at the options, Coldline is often the standard answer for 'infrequent but immediate access' in older exams. However, in modern GCP, Archive is immediate too. Let's look at the options again. Option C suggests Archive. Option D suggests Coldline. Archive is cheaper ($0.0012/GB vs $0.004/GB). Both have immediate access. Therefore Archive is better for budget. I will select Archive if the minimum duration is met. 3 years > 365 days. So Archive is the correct answer.

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