Monday, August 25, 2025

Google Cloud Compute Engine 💻: Powering the Cloud Computing

 



In the fast-paced world of cloud computing, businesses are constantly seeking flexible, powerful, and cost-effective solutions to run their applications. This is where Google Cloud Compute Engine (GCE) comes in. As the foundational Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) component of Google Cloud Platform (GCP), GCE provides highly customizable and scalable virtual machines (VMs) on demand. It gives you direct control over your computing resources, allowing you to deploy everything from simple websites to complex, high-performance computing workloads.

This comprehensive article will explore the ins and outs of GCE, covering its key features, architecture, benefits, and how it stacks up against the competition. By the end, you'll understand why GCE is the backbone for so many cloud-native applications and how you can leverage its power for your own projects.


1. What is Google Cloud Compute Engine?

Google Cloud Compute Engine is a powerful service that allows you to create and run virtual machines on Google's infrastructure. Think of it as a virtual data center where you can rent virtual servers with the exact amount of CPU, memory, and storage you need. Instead of managing physical hardware, you can provision and configure these VMs with just a few clicks or a single command. This not only saves you from the costs and complexities of on-premise infrastructure but also provides unparalleled flexibility to scale your resources up or down as your needs change.


2. Key Features of Google Cloud Compute Engine

GCE is packed with features that make it a compelling choice for a wide range of workloads.

  • Customizable Machine Types: You aren't limited to a few fixed VM sizes. GCE allows you to create custom machine types by specifying the exact number of vCPUs and the amount of memory you need. This helps you right-size your instances and avoid paying for underutilized resources.

  • Persistent Disks: GCE uses persistent disks as the primary storage for your VMs. These are high-performance, durable block storage devices that can be attached to your instances. They offer various types, including Standard, Balanced, and SSD, to meet different performance requirements.

  • Live Migration: A truly unique feature, live migration allows Google to perform host maintenance and hardware/software updates without rebooting or interrupting your running VM instances. This ensures maximum uptime and availability for your applications.

  • Preemptible VMs: For fault-tolerant and batch processing workloads, preemptible VMs offer the same machine types as standard VMs but at a significantly lower cost (up to 80% off!). The catch is that they can be terminated at any time with a 30-second warning, making them ideal for tasks that can handle interruptions.

  • Automatic Discounts: GCE provides automatic sustained use discounts for long-running instances. The more you use a VM within a month, the lower the hourly rate becomes, without any commitment or upfront payment. It also offers Committed Use Discounts for customers who agree to a 1 or 3-year term.

  • Global and Regional Management: GCE allows you to deploy your VMs in different regions and zones across the globe, providing low-latency access for users and enhancing disaster recovery capabilities.

  • Managed Instance Groups (MIGs): This feature lets you create and manage a group of identical VM instances as a single entity. MIGs offer autoscaling to automatically add or remove instances based on load, and autohealing to automatically recreate unhealthy VMs.


3. Architecture of Google Cloud Compute Engine and Categories

GCE's architecture is built on the concept of a global network of data centers, organized into regions and zones.



  • Regions and Zones: A region is a specific geographical location (e.g., us-central1). Each region is composed of multiple independent zones (e.g., us-central1-a, us-central1-b). Zones are isolated from one another to prevent service disruptions from affecting the entire region, thus providing high availability.

  • Machine Families: GCE offers a variety of machine families, each optimized for different types of workloads.

    • General-Purpose: These are balanced and cost-effective machines (E2, N2, N2D families) suitable for most common workloads like web servers and small to medium-sized databases.

    • Compute-Optimized: (C2, C2D families) These machines have a very high vCPU-to-memory ratio, designed for compute-intensive workloads like gaming, high-performance computing (HPC), and ad serving.

    • Memory-Optimized: (M1, M2 families) With a very high memory-to-vCPU ratio, these are perfect for large, in-memory databases and data analytics workloads.

    • Accelerator-Optimized: (A2 family) These instances are equipped with powerful GPUs and are designed for machine learning (ML), high-performance computing (HPC), and other graphics-intensive tasks.


4. What are the benefits of Google Cloud Compute Engine?

Leveraging GCE offers several significant benefits:

  • Cost-Effectiveness: With features like sustained use discounts and preemptible VMs, you can significantly lower your computing costs. The ability to create custom machine types also ensures you aren't overpaying for resources you don't use.

  • Flexibility and Customization: GCE gives you the freedom to choose your operating system, configure your hardware, and select the region that best suits your needs, providing an unprecedented level of control.

  • Scalability: GCE's autoscaling capabilities allow your applications to handle traffic spikes and fluctuations in demand automatically, ensuring consistent performance and a great user experience.

  • High Availability and Reliability: The global network, combined with features like live migration and managed instance groups, ensures your applications are highly available and resilient to failure.

  • Seamless Integration: GCE integrates natively with a wide range of other GCP services, from Cloud Storage for data to Cloud Load Balancing for traffic management and BigQuery for data analytics, making it easy to build powerful, end-to-end solutions.


5. Compare Google Cloud Compute Engine with AWS and Azure service

GCE competes directly with AWS EC2 (Elastic Compute Cloud) and Azure Virtual Machines.

FeatureGoogle Cloud Compute EngineAWS EC2Azure Virtual Machines
Pricing ModelSustained Use Discounts, Committed Use Discounts, Preemptible VMsReserved Instances, Savings Plans, Spot InstancesReserved Instances, Azure Hybrid Benefit, Spot VMs
CustomizationOffers custom machine types to precisely configure vCPU and RAM.Pre-defined instance types (e.g., t3, m5).Pre-defined VM sizes (e.g., Dv3, Ev3).
Live MigrationA key feature, enables seamless host maintenance.Not a standard feature; requires manual migration or instance restart.Not a standard feature; requires manual migration or instance restart.
ScalabilityManaged Instance Groups with autoscaling and autohealing.Auto Scaling Groups with autohealing.Virtual Machine Scale Sets with autoscaling.
Key DifferentiatorLive Migration and automatic Sustained Use Discounts provide unique cost and availability benefits.Most mature platform with the largest market share and extensive service offerings.Deep integration with Microsoft products and services (Windows Server, SQL Server).

While all three services are powerful, GCE's unique pricing models and live migration capabilities can offer a significant advantage in cost and uptime for many workloads.


6. What are hard limits on Google Cloud Compute Engine?

GCE, like all cloud services, has quotas and limits to prevent abuse and ensure service stability. These are generally very high and can be increased upon request.

  • vCPU Quota: There's a default quota on the number of vCPUs you can use per region and per project.

  • Instance Count: The number of VM instances you can have running concurrently is also subject to quotas.

  • Persistent Disk Size: The maximum size of a single persistent disk is 64 TB.

  • API Requests: There are rate limits on how many API calls you can make to the GCE API per minute.

  • In-use IP Addresses: The number of static and ephemeral IP addresses you can use in a project is limited.

You can view and request increases for these quotas via the Google Cloud Console.


7. Top 10 real-world use case scenarios for Google Cloud Compute Engine

  1. Web Hosting: Running scalable web servers for dynamic websites and e-commerce platforms.

  2. Dev/Test Environments: Quickly provisioning isolated environments for developers to test code.

  3. Big Data Processing: Running large-scale data processing jobs with tools like Apache Hadoop and Spark.

  4. High-Performance Computing (HPC): Running complex scientific simulations and financial models that require massive computational power.

  5. Gaming Servers: Hosting dedicated game servers with low latency and high reliability.

  6. Batch Processing: Using preemptible VMs to run large, interruptible batch jobs like media transcoding or data rendering.

  7. SaaS Applications: Deploying multi-tenant SaaS applications that require isolated computing resources for each customer.

  8. Machine Learning Training: Using GPU-optimized instances to train complex machine learning models.

  9. Disaster Recovery: Setting up a backup environment in another region for business continuity.

  10. Custom Application Hosting: Migrating and hosting legacy or custom applications that are not suitable for serverless platforms.


8. Explain in detail Google Cloud Compute Engine availability, resilience, and scalability

Availability and Resilience: GCE is engineered for high availability.

  • Global Network and Zones: By deploying your VMs across multiple zones within a region, you can protect your application from zonal outages. If one zone fails, traffic can be redirected to instances in other zones.

  • Live Migration: As mentioned earlier, this feature makes your VMs resilient to planned maintenance events on the underlying hardware.

  • Managed Instance Groups (MIGs): The autohealing feature of MIGs automatically recreates VMs that fail a health check, ensuring your application remains available even if an instance becomes unresponsive.

  • Regional Persistent Disks: These disks replicate data between two zones in a region, providing high availability for your storage.

Scalability: GCE provides both vertical and horizontal scaling.

  • Horizontal Scaling: This is managed by Managed Instance Groups and autoscaling. When traffic increases, autoscaling automatically adds more instances to your group to handle the load. When traffic decreases, it removes instances to save costs. This is the most common and effective way to scale a stateless application.

  • Vertical Scaling: This involves increasing the vCPUs or memory of an existing VM. While it requires a brief restart, it is useful for workloads that can't be distributed horizontally, such as large, monolithic databases. GCE's custom machine types make this easy to do, so you only pay for the extra resources you need.


9. Step-by-step design for a 2-tier web application with code example in Python

Here's a simplified design for a two-tier web application using GCE, with a Python web server (frontend) and a Cloud SQL database (backend).

Step 1: Create a VPC Network and Firewall Rules

Create a custom Virtual Private Cloud (VPC) and a firewall rule to allow HTTP traffic to your web server instances.

Bash
gcloud compute networks create my-web-app-network --subnet-mode=auto
gcloud compute firewall-rules create my-web-app-firewall --network=my-web-app-network --allow=tcp:80 --source-ranges=0.0.0.0/0 --target-tags=http-server

Step 2: Create a Cloud SQL Instance (Backend)

Provision a managed relational database instance.

Bash
gcloud sql instances create my-app-db --database-version=MYSQL_8_0 --region=us-central1 --storage-size=10GB

Step 3: Write the Python Web Application (Frontend)

Create a simple Flask application that connects to the database.

main.py

Python
import os
from flask import Flask, jsonify
import mysql.connector

app = Flask(__name__)

# Replace with your Cloud SQL connection details
db_user = "your_db_user"
db_password = "your_db_password"
db_name = "your_db_name"
db_host = "your_cloud_sql_instance_ip" # Use the private IP of the Cloud SQL instance

def get_db_connection():
    return mysql.connector.connect(
        host=db_host,
        user=db_user,
        password=db_password,
        database=db_name
    )

@app.route('/')
def home():
    try:
        conn = get_db_connection()
        cursor = conn.cursor()
        cursor.execute("SELECT 1")
        result = cursor.fetchone()
        conn.close()
        return jsonify({"message": f"Hello from GCE! Database connection successful: {result}"})
    except Exception as e:
        return jsonify({"error": str(e)}), 500

if __name__ == '__main__':
    app.run(host='0.0.0.0', port=80)

requirements.txt

Flask
mysql-connector-python

Step 4: Create a Startup Script

This script will be used to automatically install the necessary software on the GCE instances.

startup-script.sh

Bash
#!/bin/bash
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install -y python3 python3-pip
sudo pip3 install -r /home/my_app/requirements.txt
sudo mkdir /home/my_app
sudo chmod 777 /home/my_app
sudo cp /path/to/main.py /home/my_app/
sudo cp /path/to/requirements.txt /home/my_app/
sudo nohup python3 /home/my_app/main.py > /dev/null 2>&1 &

Step 5: Create a Managed Instance Group and an HTTP Load Balancer

Create a MIG with the web application and set up an HTTP Load Balancer to distribute traffic.

Bash
# Create an instance template
gcloud compute instance-templates create my-web-app-template \
    --machine-type=e2-micro \
    --image-family=debian-10 \
    --image-project=debian-cloud \
    --metadata-from-file=startup-script=startup-script.sh \
    --tags=http-server \
    --network=my-web-app-network

# Create a managed instance group
gcloud compute instance-groups managed create my-web-app-mig \
    --base-instance-name=my-app-instance \
    --template=my-web-app-template \
    --size=1 \
    --zone=us-central1-a

# Configure autoscaling
gcloud compute instance-groups managed set-autoscaling my-web-app-mig \
    --zone=us-central1-a \
    --max-num-replicas=5 \
    --target-cpu-utilization=0.6

# Set up the load balancer (requires multiple steps)
# 1. Create a health check
gcloud compute health-checks create http my-web-app-health-check \
    --request-path=/

# 2. Create a backend service
gcloud compute backend-services create my-web-app-backend-service \
    --protocol=HTTP --port-name=http --health-checks=my-web-app-health-check \
    --global

# 3. Add the instance group to the backend service
gcloud compute backend-services add-backend my-web-app-backend-service \
    --instance-group=my-web-app-mig --instance-group-zone=us-central1-a \
    --global

# 4. Create a URL map and a target proxy
gcloud compute url-maps create my-web-app-url-map --default-service my-web-app-backend-service
gcloud compute target-http-proxies create my-web-app-http-proxy --url-map my-web-app-url-map

# 5. Create a global forwarding rule and get the IP
gcloud compute forwarding-rules create my-web-app-http-forwarding-rule \
    --global --target-http-proxy=my-web-app-http-proxy --ports=80

This design ensures that your web application is highly available, scalable, and resilient to failures, with traffic automatically distributed by the load balancer.


10. Final conclusion

Google Cloud Compute Engine stands out as a powerful, flexible, and cost-effective IaaS solution. Its unique features like live migration, custom machine types, and automatic sustained use discounts provide a competitive edge in the cloud market. By abstracting away the complexities of physical hardware while giving you granular control, GCE empowers developers and businesses to run a vast array of workloads with high availability and unmatched scalability. It's an essential tool for anyone looking to build a robust and reliable cloud infrastructure.


11. Refer Google blog with link on Google Cloud Compute Engine

To stay updated with the latest product announcements, tutorials, and best practices for GCE, you can find a wealth of information on the official Google Cloud blog.


13. 50 Good Google Cloud Compute Engine Knowledge Practice Questions

  1. What is the primary service provided by Google Cloud Compute Engine?

    • A. Serverless functions

    • B. Virtual machines

    • C. Managed databases

    • D. Block storage

    • Answer: B. GCE is Google Cloud's Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) offering for running virtual machines.

  2. What is a key benefit of using Preemptible VMs?

    • A. They are the most reliable for mission-critical applications.

    • B. They offer high availability with live migration.

    • C. They are significantly cheaper for fault-tolerant workloads.

    • D. They are only available for Windows OS.

    • Answer: C. Preemptible VMs are a low-cost option for workloads that can handle interruptions.

  3. Which of the following is NOT a GCE machine family category?

    • A. General-Purpose

    • B. Storage-Optimized

    • C. Compute-Optimized

    • D. Memory-Optimized

    • Answer: B. While GCE has storage options, there isn't a dedicated "Storage-Optimized" machine family.

  4. What GCE feature allows Google to perform host maintenance without rebooting your VM?

    • A. Autohealing

    • B. Live Migration

    • C. Autoscaling

    • D. Managed Instance Groups

    • Answer: B. Live Migration is a unique GCE feature that ensures continuous uptime during planned maintenance.

  5. Which of the following is a type of horizontal scaling in GCE?

    • A. Increasing a VM's vCPUs

    • B. Changing a VM's machine type

    • C. Using Managed Instance Groups with autoscaling

    • D. Using a larger Persistent Disk

    • Answer: C. Horizontal scaling involves adding or removing instances to handle load.

  6. What is the purpose of a Managed Instance Group (MIG)?

    • A. To create a single, powerful VM.

    • B. To manage a group of identical VMs as a single entity.

    • C. To create a database cluster.

    • D. To provision serverless functions.

    • Answer: B. MIGs simplify the management, scaling, and healing of multiple VMs.

  7. How do Sustained Use Discounts work?

    • A. They require a long-term commitment.

    • B. They are applied automatically based on monthly usage.

    • C. They only apply to preemptible VMs.

    • D. They are only available for specific machine types.

    • Answer: B. GCE automatically applies these discounts as your monthly usage increases.

  8. What is the smallest geographic unit within a Google Cloud region?

    • A. A country

    • B. A zone

    • C. A continent

    • D. A data center

    • Answer: B. A region is a collection of independent zones.

  9. Which of the following is a key differentiator when comparing GCE to AWS EC2?

    • A. GCE has more regions and zones.

    • B. AWS EC2 offers more flexible pricing.

    • C. GCE offers custom machine types.

    • D. AWS EC2 has better networking.

    • Answer: C. Custom machine types are a unique GCE feature not found in AWS EC2.

  10. What is a "boot disk" in GCE?

    • A. A disk used for temporary storage.

    • B. A persistent disk that contains the operating system.

    • C. A non-persistent disk.

    • D. An external hard drive.

    • Answer: B. The boot disk is the primary disk where the OS is installed.

  11. What is a common use case for a Compute-Optimized VM?

    • A. Running a small blog.

    • B. Hosting a large in-memory database.

    • C. High-performance computing (HPC).

    • D. Running a static website.

    • Answer: C. Compute-optimized machines are designed for CPU-intensive workloads.

  12. Which of the following is a benefit of GCE's seamless integration with other GCP services?

    • A. It increases costs.

    • B. It makes development more complex.

    • C. It simplifies building end-to-end solutions.

    • D. It reduces security.

    • Answer: C. Native integration makes it easy to connect GCE with other GCP services.

  13. What is a "startup script" in GCE?

    • A. A script that runs only when the VM is stopped.

    • B. A script that runs automatically when a VM instance starts up.

    • C. A script to create a new VM.

    • D. A script to manage networking.

    • Answer: B. Startup scripts automate the initial setup of an instance.

  14. What is a hard limit on the size of a single Persistent Disk?

    • A. 1 TB

    • B. 10 TB

    • C. 64 TB

    • D. 128 TB

    • Answer: C. A single persistent disk can be up to 64 TB.

  15. What is the purpose of a health check in a Managed Instance Group?

    • A. To monitor CPU usage.

    • B. To check if an instance is responsive and healthy.

    • C. To check disk space.

    • D. To test network speed.

    • Answer: B. Health checks are used for autohealing and load balancing.

  16. How can you ensure your application is highly available in GCE?

    • A. Deploying all VMs in a single zone.

    • B. Deploying VMs across multiple zones within a region.

    • C. Using only one VM.

    • D. Using only Preemptible VMs.

    • Answer: B. Distributing instances across zones protects against a single zone's failure.

  17. What is the gcloud compute instances create command used for?

    • A. To delete a VM instance.

    • B. To create a new VM instance.

    • C. To stop a VM instance.

    • D. To list all VM instances.

    • Answer: B. This is the primary command-line tool for provisioning GCE instances.

  18. Which of the following is a benefit of using a custom machine type?

    • A. It is always cheaper than a predefined machine type.

    • B. It allows you to precisely match resources to your workload's needs.

    • C. It is only available for Windows VMs.

    • D. It does not support autoscaling.

    • Answer: B. Custom machine types help prevent resource waste and over-provisioning.

  19. What is the difference between an ephemeral and a static external IP address?

    • A. An ephemeral IP is always the same.

    • B. A static IP is reserved and remains the same even after a VM restart.

    • C. A static IP is cheaper.

    • D. An ephemeral IP is only for internal use.

    • Answer: B. Static IPs are persistent, while ephemeral IPs are assigned for the duration of the VM's lifecycle.

  20. What is the purpose of an instance template?

    • A. To create a single VM.

    • B. To define the configuration for a VM instance.

    • C. To manage networking.

    • D. To provide a live image.

    • Answer: B. Instance templates are used by Managed Instance Groups to create identical instances.

  21. What is the main role of a Load Balancer in a GCE web application?

    • A. To store data.

    • B. To distribute incoming traffic across multiple instances.

    • C. To manage the database.

    • D. To run background jobs.

    • Answer: B. Load balancers are crucial for distributing traffic, ensuring high availability, and handling traffic spikes.

  22. What is the main advantage of using a Regional Managed Instance Group?

    • A. It is cheaper than a zonal group.

    • B. It distributes instances across multiple zones for greater resilience.

    • C. It can only be used for batch jobs.

    • D. It is limited to a single zone.

    • Answer: B. Regional MIGs provide increased fault tolerance.

  23. Which GCP service is best for running stateless applications that handle unpredictable traffic, and is an alternative to GCE?

    • A. Cloud Spanner

    • B. Cloud Functions

    • C. App Engine

    • D. Cloud SQL

    • Answer: B. Cloud Functions is a serverless option ideal for event-driven, stateless workloads.

  24. How does GCE's gcloud command-line tool simplify management?

    • A. It provides a visual interface.

    • B. It automates common tasks and scripting.

    • C. It only works for a single VM.

    • D. It can only be used for Windows VMs.

    • Answer: B. The gcloud CLI is a powerful tool for automation and scripting.

  25. What is the purpose of the http-server tag in the Python example?

    • A. To identify the instance as a web server.

    • B. To connect to the database.

    • C. To define the startup script.

    • D. To set the machine type.

    • Answer: A. Tags are used to group instances for network rules (like firewall rules) and management purposes.

  26. What is the primary function of an Accelerator-Optimized VM?

    • A. Running a web server.

    • B. Hosting a large database.

    • C. Training machine learning models with GPUs.

    • D. Running a gaming server.

    • Answer: C. These VMs are equipped with accelerators like GPUs and TPUs for specialized workloads.

  27. What is the primary role of an image in GCE?

    • A. A snapshot of a running VM.

    • B. A template for a persistent disk's boot partition.

    • C. A backup of the data.

    • D. The visual interface of the VM.

    • Answer: B. An image is the OS template from which a new VM is created.

  28. How can you reduce the cost of a long-running, predictable workload?

    • A. Use a Preemptible VM.

    • B. Use a free-tier VM.

    • C. Purchase a Committed Use Discount (CUD).

    • D. Manually scale the VM up and down.

    • Answer: C. CUDs offer a significant discount for a long-term commitment.

  29. What is the purpose of the --target-cpu-utilization flag in autoscaling?

    • A. It sets a fixed CPU usage.

    • B. It defines the CPU utilization target for the autoscaler.

    • C. It limits the number of vCPUs.

    • D. It sets the maximum number of VMs.

    • Answer: B. This flag tells the autoscaler when to add or remove instances based on CPU usage.

  30. Which is a type of Persistent Disk that offers higher performance than a standard disk?

    • A. SSD Persistent Disk

    • B. Cloud Storage Bucket

    • C. Tape Storage

    • D. A physical hard drive

    • Answer: A. SSD Persistent Disks provide higher IOPS and throughput.

  31. What is the purpose of the gcloud compute instances start command?

    • A. To create a new VM instance.

    • B. To stop a running VM instance.

    • C. To resume a suspended VM instance.

    • D. To list all running VM instances.

    • Answer: C. start resumes a stopped or suspended instance.

  32. What is the primary benefit of using a Regional Persistent Disk?

    • A. It is cheaper.

    • B. It provides a copy of your disk in a second zone.

    • C. It can be attached to any VM in the world.

    • D. It is faster.

    • Answer: B. Regional disks provide high availability by replicating data across zones.

  33. What is the difference between a zone and a region?

    • A. Zones are isolated, while regions are not.

    • B. A region contains one or more zones.

    • C. A zone is a country, and a region is a continent.

    • D. A zone is a data center, and a region is a group of data centers.

    • Answer: B. This is the core organizational structure of Google Cloud.

  34. Which GCE feature is most suitable for running a large-scale, interruptible batch processing job?

    • A. Standard VMs with autoscaling.

    • B. A single Memory-Optimized VM.

    • C. A Managed Instance Group of Preemptible VMs.

    • D. A single-node Compute-Optimized VM.

    • Answer: C. Preemptible VMs are designed for this exact use case due to their low cost.

  35. What is a "snapshot" in GCE?

    • A. A full copy of a persistent disk at a specific point in time.

    • B. A small image file.

    • C. A VM's memory state.

    • D. A backup of the entire project.

    • Answer: A. Snapshots are used for backing up data and creating new disks.

  36. What is the purpose of the --tags flag when creating an instance?

    • A. To specify the operating system.

    • B. To set the VM's name.

    • C. To apply labels for filtering and firewall rules.

    • D. To specify the machine type.

    • Answer: C. Tags are crucial for network and firewall management.

  37. What is the purpose of the nohup command in the startup script?

    • A. To stop the application.

    • B. To run a command in the background.

    • C. To delete a file.

    • D. To install a package.

    • Answer: B. nohup prevents the process from being terminated when the user logs out.

  38. How does a Managed Instance Group (MIG) handle an unhealthy instance?

    • A. It sends an email alert.

    • B. It automatically recreates the instance.

    • C. It manually restarts the instance.

    • D. It waits for the user to intervene.

    • Answer: B. This is the core function of the autohealing feature.

  39. Which GCP service is a managed relational database that integrates well with GCE?

    • A. Cloud Storage

    • B. BigQuery

    • C. Cloud SQL

    • D. Cloud Functions

    • Answer: C. Cloud SQL is a fully managed database service for MySQL, PostgreSQL, and SQL Server.

  40. What is the main benefit of using a private IP address for the database connection in the 2-tier app example?

    • A. It is more expensive.

    • B. It is only accessible from within the VPC network, making it more secure.

    • C. It is accessible from the internet.

    • D. It is slower.

    • Answer: B. Using a private IP enhances security by preventing external access.

  41. What is the purpose of the --target-tags flag in a firewall rule?

    • A. To identify the source of the traffic.

    • B. To identify the destination instances the rule applies to.

    • C. To set the firewall's name.

    • D. To set the allowed port.

    • Answer: B. It specifies which instances the firewall rule will apply to based on their tags.

  42. What is a "service account" in the context of GCE?

    • A. A billing account.

    • B. An identity used by a VM instance to interact with other GCP services.

    • C. A user's personal account.

    • D. A shared login for all users.

    • Answer: B. Service accounts provide the necessary permissions for VMs to access other GCP resources.

  43. What is the primary role of a Memory-Optimized VM?

    • A. Running CPU-intensive applications.

    • B. Hosting large in-memory databases.

    • C. Running machine learning models.

    • D. Web hosting.

    • Answer: B. These are ideal for workloads that require a large amount of memory.

  44. Which of the following describes the IaaS model?

    • A. The user manages all infrastructure, including hardware and software.

    • B. The cloud provider manages only the physical hardware and networking, and the user manages everything else.

    • C. The cloud provider manages all aspects of the infrastructure, and the user only provides code.

    • D. The user only manages the database.

    • Answer: B. IaaS provides you with VMs, and you are responsible for the OS, applications, and data.

  45. What is a "quota" in Google Cloud?

    • A. A fixed cost for a service.

    • B. A limit on how much of a resource you can use.

    • C. A type of discount.

    • D. A security feature.

    • Answer: B. Quotas are in place to manage resource consumption and availability.

  46. What is the purpose of the gcloud compute url-maps create command?

    • A. To create a new VM.

    • B. To define how a load balancer routes requests to backend services.

    • C. To manage domain names.

    • D. To create a new disk.

    • Answer: B. URL maps are a core component of HTTP(S) load balancing.

  47. What is the default CPU platform for an E2 machine type?

    • A. Intel Xeon

    • B. AMD EPYC

    • C. It is a custom platform managed by Google.

    • D. NVIDIA GPU

    • Answer: C. E2 machine types are built on a custom, high-performance platform.

  48. What is a "snapshot schedule"?

    • A. A feature that automatically creates disk snapshots on a set schedule.

    • B. A schedule for VM uptime.

    • C. A schedule for disk deletion.

    • D. A schedule for live migration.

    • Answer: A. Snapshot schedules automate backups.

  49. How can you get the external IP address of a VM instance from the command line?

    • A. gcloud compute instances stop

    • B. gcloud compute instances list

    • C. gcloud compute instances delete

    • D. gcloud compute instances create

    • Answer: B. The list command provides an overview of your instances, including their IP addresses.

  50. What is the main advantage of using a Load Balancer with a MIG?

    • A. It adds cost.

    • B. It ensures incoming traffic is evenly distributed, preventing a single point of failure.

    • C. It is only for internal traffic.

    • D. It limits the number of VMs.

    • Answer: B. This combination is a standard best practice for building a highly available and scalable application.

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GCP Cloud Quiz - quiz2 Question

Google cloud platform Quiz ☁️ Google cloud Platform Professional Certificati...