Free Sample — 15 Practice Questions
Preview 15 of 167 questions from the Professional Cloud Database Engineer exam.
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Question 84
Your company is using Cloud SQL for MySQL with an internal (private) IP address and wants to replicate some tables into BigQuery in near-real time for analytics and machine learning. You need to ensure that replication is fast and reliable and uses Google-managed services. What should you do?
A. Develop a custom data replication service to send data into BigQuery.
B. Use Cloud SQL federated queries.
C. Use Database Migration Service to replicate tables into BigQuery.
D. Use Datastream to capture changes, and use Dataflow to write those changes to BigQuery.
Show Answer
Correct Answer: D
Explanation:
The requirement is near–real-time replication from Cloud SQL for MySQL (private IP) into BigQuery using Google‑managed services. Datastream is Google’s serverless CDC service for MySQL that captures changes with low latency, and Dataflow provides managed streaming pipelines and templates to transform and load those changes into BigQuery reliably. Federated queries do not replicate data, Database Migration Service does not target BigQuery, and building a custom service contradicts the managed‑service requirement.
Question 32
You are deploying a Cloud SQL for MySQL database to serve a non-critical application. The database size is 10 GB and will be updated every night with data stored in a Cloud Storage bucket. The database serves read-only traffic from the application during the day. The data locality requirement of this application mandates that data must reside in a single region. You want to minimize the cost of running this database while maintaining an RTO of 1 day. What should you do?
A. Create a Cloud SQL for MySQL instance with high availability (HA) enabled. Configure automated backups of the Cloud SQL instance, and use the default backup location.
B. Create a Cloud SQL for MySQL instance with high availability (HA) disabled. Create a read replica in the same zone.
C. Create a Cloud SQL for MySQL instance with high availability (HA) disabled. Create a read replica in a second region.
D. Create a Cloud SQL for MySQL instance with high availability (HA) disabled. Configure automated backups of the Cloud SQL instance, and use a custom backup location to store backups in a Cloud Storage bucket in the same region.
Show Answer
Correct Answer: D
Explanation:
The application is non-critical, has a relaxed RTO of 1 day, and must keep data in a single region while minimizing cost. High availability and read replicas add unnecessary cost. Automated backups are sufficient to meet a 1-day RTO, and using a custom backup location in the same region satisfies the data locality requirement. Therefore, a single Cloud SQL instance without HA, with automated backups stored in-region, is the most cost-effective solution.
Question 92
Your organization has a ticketing system that needs an online marketing analytics and reporting application. You need to select a relational database that can manage hundreds of terabytes of data to support this new application. Which database should you use?
A. Cloud SQL
B. BigQuery
C. Cloud Spanner
D. Bigtable
Show Answer
Correct Answer: B
Explanation:
The requirement is for an online marketing analytics and reporting application that can analyze hundreds of terabytes of data. BigQuery is Google Cloud’s fully managed analytical (OLAP) database designed for large-scale analytics and reporting, supports SQL over relational schemas, and scales to petabytes. Cloud SQL cannot scale that large, Cloud Spanner is optimized for OLTP rather than heavy analytics, and Bigtable is non-relational.
Question 116
You are running a large, highly transactional application on Oracle Real Application Cluster (RAC) that is multi-tenant and uses shared storage. You need a solution that ensures high-performance throughput and a low-latency connection between applications and databases. The solution must also support existing Oracle features and provide ease of migration to Google Cloud. What should you do?
A. Migrate to Compute Engine.
B. Migrate to Bare Metal Solution for Oracle.
C. Migrate to Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE)
D. Migrate to Google Cloud VMware Engine
Show Answer
Correct Answer: B
Explanation:
Oracle RAC with shared storage requires low-latency networking, full Oracle feature support, and certified licensing/support. Google Cloud Bare Metal Solution for Oracle provides dedicated hardware, high-throughput/low-latency connectivity, shared storage, and supports Oracle RAC and existing Oracle features, enabling easier migration. Other options do not fully support RAC or required Oracle licensing/features.
Question 60
You are deploying a new Cloud SQL instance on Google Cloud using the Cloud SQL Auth proxy. You have identified snippets of application code that need to access the new Cloud SQL instance. The snippets reside and execute on an application server running on a Compute Engine machine. You want to follow Google-recommended practices to set up Identity and Access Management (IAM) as quickly and securely as possible. What should you do?
A. For each application code, set up a common shared user account.
B. For each application code, set up a dedicated user account.
C. For the application server, set up a service account.
D. For the application server, set up a common shared user account.
Show Answer
Correct Answer: C
Explanation:
When running application code on a Compute Engine VM and connecting to Cloud SQL via the Cloud SQL Auth Proxy, Google-recommended practice is to use a service account attached to the VM. The proxy natively supports service accounts, avoids long-lived user credentials, enables least-privilege IAM via the Cloud SQL Client role, and is the fastest and most secure setup. Shared or user accounts are discouraged for production workloads.
Question 24
You are setting up a new AlloyDB instance and want users to be able to use their existing Identity and Access Management (IAM) identities to connect to AlloyDB. You have performed the following steps:
• Manually enabled IAM authentication on the AlloyDB instance
• Granted the alloydb.databaseUser and ser-viceusage.serviceUsageconsumer IAM roles to the users
• Created new AlloyDB database users based on corresponding IAM identities
Users are able to connect but are reporting that they are not able to SELECT from application tables. What should you do?
A. Grant the new database users access privileges to the appropriate tables.
B. Grant the alloydb.client IAM role to each user.
C. Grant the alloydb.viewer IAM role to each user.
D. Grant the alloydb.alloydbreplica IAM role to each user.
Show Answer
Correct Answer: A
Explanation:
IAM authentication only controls how users authenticate to AlloyDB, not what they can do inside the database. Even though the users can connect successfully using their IAM identities, they still need standard PostgreSQL database privileges (such as SELECT) on schemas and tables. Therefore, you must grant the appropriate table or schema privileges to the new database users.
Question 164
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
Correct Answer: C
Explanation:
Bare Metal Solution servers do not have public IPs and cannot use Cloud NAT directly because Cloud NAT does not support transitive routing. To provide outbound internet access (for OS updates), Google’s official documentation specifies deploying a NAT gateway on a Compute Engine VM that the BMS environment routes traffic through. Therefore, setting up a NAT gateway on a Compute Engine VM is the correct approach.
Question 12
Your company’s rapidly growing ecommerce application uses Cloud SQL for MySQL. Performance issues are surfacing during peak traffic periods. You need to ensure that the database can handle the load while minimizing downtime. What should you do?
A. Use read replicas for query offloading, configure automatic failover, and test failover procedures regularly.
B. Vertically scale the primary instance by significantly increasing compute resources, such as vCPUs and memory.
C. Increase storage size on the existing instance and implement client-side caching for frequently accessed data.
D. Migrate to a Cloud SQL for PostgreSQL database for better performance during high load.
Show Answer
Correct Answer: A
Explanation:
Read replicas offload read traffic from the primary, improving performance during peak load, while automatic failover minimizes downtime if the primary fails. Regular failover testing ensures reliability. This approach scales read-heavy ecommerce workloads without requiring disruptive migrations or solely relying on vertical scaling.
Question 128
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
Correct Answer: A
Explanation:
High replication lag in Cloud SQL for MySQL is most commonly caused by replicas being unable to keep up with write volume due to inefficient queries or single-threaded replication. The recommended first actions are to identify and optimize slow-running queries and schema issues, and to enable or tune parallel replication (for example, slave_parallel_workers). Recreating replicas or vertically scaling the primary does not directly address the root cause and is not the preferred initial remediation.
Question 105
Your ecommerce application connecting to your Cloud SQL for SQL Server is expected to have additional traffic due to the holiday weekend. You want to follow Google-recommended practices to set up alerts for CPU and memory metrics so you can be notified by text message at the first sign of potential issues. What should you do?
A. Use a Cloud Function to pull CPU and memory metrics from your Cloud SQL instance and to call a custom service to send alerts.
B. Use Error Reporting to monitor CPU and memory metrics and to configure SMS notification channels.
C. Use Cloud Logging to set up a log sink for CPU and memory metrics and to configure a sink destination to send a message to Pub/Sub.
D. Use Cloud Monitoring to set up an alerting policy for CPU and memory metrics and to configure SMS notification channels.
Show Answer
Correct Answer: D
Explanation:
Google-recommended practice is to use Cloud Monitoring for metrics-based alerting. Cloud Monitoring natively collects Cloud SQL CPU and memory metrics and supports alerting policies with SMS notification channels. The other options either require unnecessary custom work, are for error events rather than metrics, or do not provide direct SMS alerts.
Question 141
You are designing a payments processing application on Google Cloud. The application must continue to serve requests and avoid any user disruption if a regional failure occurs. You need to use AES-256 to encrypt data in the database, and you want to control where you store the encryption key. What should you do?
A. Use Cloud Spanner with a customer-managed encryption key (CMEK).
B. Use Cloud Spanner with default encryption.
C. Use Cloud SQL with a customer-managed encryption key (CMEK).
D. Use Bigtable with default encryption.
Show Answer
Correct Answer: A
Explanation:
The application must survive a regional failure without user disruption, which requires a globally or multi‑region managed database with automatic failover—Cloud Spanner provides this capability. The requirement to encrypt data with AES‑256 while controlling where the encryption key is stored requires customer‑managed encryption keys (CMEK). Cloud Spanner supports CMEK. Cloud SQL is regional and would require manual failover, and default encryption does not give control over key storage.
Question 151
Your company uses the Cloud SQL out-of-disk recommender to analyze the storage utilization trends of production databases over the last 30 days. Your database operations team uses these recommendations to proactively monitor storage utilization and implement corrective actions. You receive a recommendation that the instance is likely to run out of disk space. What should you do to address this storage alert?
A. Normalize the database to the third normal form.
B. Compress the data using a different compression algorithm.
C. Manually or automatically increase the storage capacity.
D. Create another schema to load older data.
Show Answer
Correct Answer: C
Explanation:
The Cloud SQL out-of-disk recommender indicates the instance will exhaust storage. The appropriate remediation is to increase disk capacity, either manually or by enabling automatic storage increases. Other options (schema normalization, compression changes, or adding schemas) are not the recommended or reliable actions for this alert.
Question 69
Your company is migrating their MySQL database to Cloud SQL and cannot afford any planned downtime during the month of December. The company is also concerned with cost, so you need the most cost-effective solution. What should you do?
A. Open a support ticket in Google Cloud to prevent any maintenance in that MySQL instance during the month of December.
B. Use Cloud SQL maintenance settings to prevent any maintenance during the month of December.
C. Create MySQL read replicas in different zones so that, if any downtime occurs, the read replicas will act as the primary instance during the month of December.
D. Create a MySQL regional instance so that, if any downtime occurs, the standby instance will act as the primary instance during the month of December.
Show Answer
Correct Answer: B
Explanation:
Cloud SQL provides maintenance settings that allow you to define a maintenance deny period of up to 90 days, during which Google will not perform planned maintenance. This meets the requirement of zero planned downtime in December and is the most cost-effective option because it does not require additional replicas or regional instances. Opening a support ticket cannot override managed maintenance, and replicas or regional instances add extra cost.
Question 47
You need to issue a new server certificate because your old one is expiring. You need to avoid a restart of your Cloud SQL for MySQL instance. What should you do in your Cloud SQL instance?
A. Issue a rollback, and download your server certificate.
B. Create a new client certificate, and download it.
C. Create a new server certificate, and download it.
D. Reset your SSL configuration, and download your server certificate.
Show Answer
Correct Answer: C
Explanation:
To avoid restarting a Cloud SQL for MySQL instance while rotating an expiring server certificate, you should create a new server certificate and download it. Cloud SQL allows server certificate rotation without requiring an instance restart, whereas enforcing or resetting SSL settings could trigger a restart. Client certificates are not relevant when the server certificate is expiring.
Question 88
You need to provision several hundred Cloud SQL for MySQL instances for multiple project teams over a one-week period. You must ensure that all instances adhere to company standards such as instance naming conventions, database flags, and tags. What should you do?
A. Automate instance creation by writing a Dataflow job.
B. Automate instance creation by setting up Terraform scripts.
C. Create the instances using the Google Cloud Console UI.
D. Create clones from a template Cloud SQL instance.
Show Answer
Correct Answer: B
Explanation:
Provisioning hundreds of Cloud SQL instances with consistent naming, flags, and tags requires repeatable, declarative automation. Terraform provides infrastructure-as-code with templates, variables, and policy enforcement, making it ideal for large-scale, standardized deployments. Dataflow is for data processing, the Console UI is manual and error-prone at scale, and cloning instances does not reliably enforce full standards across many projects.