GCP-PCA Sample Questions & Answers
Designing infrastructure to meet business and technical requirements carries the most weight, alongside rolling out network, storage, and compute resources, building in security and compliance, process analysis, guiding deployment teams, and operational excellence.
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- Question 1Intermediate
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?
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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.
- Question 2Intermediate
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?
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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.
- Question 3Beginner
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?
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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.
- Question 4Intermediate
Managing and Provisioning a Solution Infrastructure · Configuring compute systems
You are the Cloud Architect for a startup launching a new mobile app backend on Cloud Run. The app relies on a backend relational database. You need to ensure that a surge in traffic does not overwhelm the database connection pool, causing crashes. Which configuration should you apply?
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Correct answer: B
Setting
max-instancesacts as a concurrency limit for the entire service. This prevents serverless auto-scaling from spinning up thousands of containers during a traffic spike, which would exhaust the database connection pool and crash the DB. This is a critical pattern for protecting downstream non-serverless resources. - Question 5Advanced
Designing for Security and Compliance · Designing for security
A manufacturing company uses a shared VPC architecture. The 'Data Science' service project needs to run a specialized analysis job on a Compute Engine instance that requires a specific GPU model only available in
us-central1-a. However, an Organization Policy restricts resource creation tous-east1. How should you resolve this conflict to allow the job to run with minimal security scope expansion?Show answer & explanation
Correct answer: B
Organization Policies follow a hierarchy inheritance model. You can override a policy at a lower level (Project level) to create an exception for a specific need. This adheres to the principle of least privilege by only relaxing the constraint for the specific project requiring the GPU, rather than changing it for the folder or organization.
- Question 6Intermediate
Analyzing and Optimizing Technical and Business Processes · Disaster recovery
You are implementing a disaster recovery plan for a critical application running on Compute Engine. The RTO is 4 hours and RPO is 1 hour. You want to minimize costs while meeting these targets. Which strategy should you choose?
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Correct answer: C
A Pilot Light strategy involves keeping the critical core (like database replication) active to meet the RPO, but keeping application servers and other compute resources turned off (or using IaC to provision them) until a disaster occurs. This fits the 4-hour RTO well (time to boot/provision) and significantly reduces costs compared to Hot or Warm standby.
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