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Question 41
Your organization is migrating a mission-critical monolithic system into a modern microservices architecture deployed across multiple Google Cloud regions. The architecture must ensure that all microservices communicate internally using private IP addressing only, with encrypted mTLS communication, identity-based routing, and automatic certificate rotation. Traffic between services must never traverse the public internet and must remain on Google’s private backbone. The system also requires advanced traffic policies such as request retries, circuit breaking, canary releases, and regional failover. Which Google Cloud-based design best meets all of these requirements?
A) Global Internal HTTP(S) Load Balancer only
B) Anthos Service Mesh with Traffic Director
C) VPC Peering with firewall rules
D) Cloud VPN between regions
Answer:
B
Explanation:
The correct answer is B because Anthos Service Mesh integrated with Traffic Director offers a complete platform for secure, identity-based, policy-driven service-to-service communication. Anthos Service Mesh enables mTLS encryption between workloads, ensuring data is encrypted in transit across regions. It also manages certificate rotation automatically, which is essential for reducing operational risk and maintaining compliance. This combination helps enforce zero-trust communication, meaning that all services verify the identity of other services before communication occurs. This not only enhances security but also ensures consistent behavior across a distributed architecture.
Traffic Director acts as the global control plane and service discovery mechanism. It allows centralized management of routing policies and supports advanced traffic engineering features like canary rollouts, traffic splitting, outlier detection, retries, and regional failover. These features are particularly important in multi-region microservice environments where reliability, low latency, and resilience are mandatory. Traffic Director ensures that routing decisions are made intelligently and based on real-time health information. It can also shift traffic away from failing regions or unhealthy workloads without requiring manual intervention.
Option A, Global Internal HTTP(S) Load Balancer, provides powerful internal global routing but does not supply identity-based authorization or mTLS between individual workloads. It routes traffic, but it does not manage certificates, enforce workload identity, or apply advanced microservice policies at the mesh level.
Option C, VPC Peering, allows basic private connectivity between networks but does not provide identity-based access controls, encryption, or dynamic traffic management. Firewall rules alone cannot deliver fine-grained authorization at the workload level. VPC Peering is too low-level and lacks application awareness.
Option D, Cloud VPN, routes traffic across Google’s network but adds latency and does not provide identity-based security for microservices. It also does not support dynamic traffic shaping or mTLS at the service layer.
Anthos Service Mesh is designed specifically to secure and optimize microservice communication across multi-region environments, making it the only architecture that fulfills every requirement.
Question 42
A large enterprise with strict compliance rules requires that no workloads in Google Cloud have external IP addresses. They must still be able to reach external SaaS APIs for updates, licensing, and telemetry. The organization also requires centralized logging, automatic scaling, and no exposure to the public internet. Which Google Cloud solution best satisfies these requirements for secure outbound connectivity?
A) Cloud NAT
B) HA VPN
C) External HTTP(S) Load Balancer
D) Direct Peering
Answer:
A
Explanation:
Cloud NAT is the correct answer because it provides secure, outbound-only internet connectivity for resources without external IPs. Cloud NAT scales automatically, is fully managed, and ensures that workloads remain unreachable from the public internet. It only allows outbound connections and ensures that no inbound connections are possible, which aligns perfectly with compliance requirements. It also integrates with Cloud Logging, enabling central monitoring of NAT flows and visibility into outbound traffic patterns.
Option B, HA VPN, is primarily used for hybrid connectivity between on-premises environments and Google Cloud. While it can route traffic, it does not handle outbound traffic to SaaS APIs unless the on-prem network handles egress. This contradicts the requirement for cloud-based outbound access without exposing workloads.
Option C, External HTTP(S) Load Balancer, exposes external IP addresses and is intended for inbound connections. It does not assist in outbound traffic and would violate the organization’s compliance mandate that workloads must not have public exposure.
Option D, Direct Peering, connects enterprises to Google’s edge network but only allows access to Google APIs, not the broader internet or external SaaS providers. It also requires meeting peering capacity thresholds and does not handle outbound NAT translation.
Cloud NAT remains the only solution that provides secure, outbound-only internet access for private workloads without exposing public IPs and with automatic scaling and centralized visibility.
Question 43
Your company needs to expose an internal payment-processing API to multiple partner organizations. The API must remain private, must not be accessible through the public internet, and each partner must receive an isolated endpoint so that network traffic between partners cannot mix. Partners should not be able to discover or interact with each other’s networks, and the system should scale to dozens of partners easily. Which Google Cloud networking method is the best fit?
A) VPC Peering for each partner
B) Private Service Connect with consumer endpoints
C) Cloud VPN tunnels from each partner
D) Internal TCP/UDP Load Balancer
Answer:
B
Explanation:
The correct answer is B because Private Service Connect (PSC) is explicitly designed to expose internal services privately to multiple consumers while guaranteeing strong VPC isolation. PSC ensures that each partner receives its own private endpoint, preventing lateral visibility or transitive routing between partner environments. The producer VPC exposes only the service, not the network, and partners access it as if it were a local endpoint. PSC also scales efficiently, making it ideal for multi-partner architectures.
Option A, VPC Peering, does not offer isolation between tenants. Peering flattens networks, exposing entire CIDR ranges across VPCs. This violates security rules and introduces significant risk. It also lacks scalability due to non-transitive routing and management complexity.
Option C, Cloud VPN tunnels, provides private connectivity but requires each partner to establish and maintain its own IPsec tunnel. This scales poorly with dozens of partners and exposes entire partner networks rather than just the intended API service.
Option D, Internal TCP/UDP Load Balancer, is private but works only within one VPC. It cannot be shared across VPCs in different administrative domains and does not provide isolated consumer endpoints.
PSC is the only architecture that satisfies multi-tenant isolation, private access, service-level exposure, and enterprise scalability.
Question 44
Your enterprise wants to design a global hub-and-spoke network architecture that connects multiple VPCs across regions and integrates with on-premises networks via Interconnect or VPN. The solution must avoid transitive routing between spokes, support dynamic route exchange, and allow centralized management as new VPCs are added. All routing should remain private and under organizational control. Which Google Cloud service enables this architecture?
A) VPC Peering mesh
B) Cloud Router in global dynamic routing mode
C) Network Connectivity Center (NCC)
D) Shared VPC with host project
Answer:
C
Explanation:
Network Connectivity Center (NCC) is the correct solution because it provides a unified, scalable hub-and-spoke architecture for connecting multiple VPCs and hybrid networks. NCC allows the creation of a central hub to which spokes attach, making routing simple and centralized. Importantly, it prevents transitive routing between spokes, thus enforcing strong isolation. NCC integrates with Cloud Router to enable dynamic routing using BGP, supporting hybrid connections from on-premises via Interconnect or VPN.
Option A, a VPC Peering mesh, quickly becomes unmanageable as the number of VPCs grows. Peering lacks transitive routing and requires manual configuration between every pair of VPCs. It also provides no central management.
Option B, Cloud Router in global dynamic routing mode, provides dynamic routing but no hub-and-spoke topology. Cloud Router only distributes routes; it does not manage network topology or hybrid connectivity.
Option D, Shared VPC, centralizes resource sharing but does not manage multi-VPC interconnectivity. It breaks administrative isolation between projects and is unsuitable for environments requiring strong isolation.
NCC is the only service that provides centralized, scalable, hybrid connectivity with private routing and isolation guarantees.
Question 45
A financial institution must design a hybrid connectivity solution ensuring all communication between Google Cloud and on-prem systems stays completely off the public internet. The architecture must support deterministic latency, extremely high availability, private routing, and the strongest SLA available. It must also support dynamic BGP routing so failovers occur automatically during circuit failures. Which Google Cloud connectivity option satisfies all these mission-critical requirements?
A) HA VPN
B) Dedicated Interconnect with redundant circuits
C) Partner Interconnect with a single VLAN attachment
D) Cloud VPN with static routes
Answer:
B
Explanation:
The correct answer is B because Dedicated Interconnect with redundant circuits delivers the highest-performance, SLA-backed private connectivity available in Google Cloud. It provides deterministic latency, consistent throughput, and physical isolation from the public internet. With Cloud Router enabling dynamic BGP routing, Dedicated Interconnect ensures automatic failover when circuits experience outages. Redundant connections across edge availability domains provide true enterprise-grade reliability suitable for regulated industries.
Option A, HA VPN, uses the public internet and cannot meet the reliability, performance, or solely-private-transport requirements of a financial institution.
Option C, Partner Interconnect with a single VLAN attachment, introduces a single point of failure. Without redundant attachments, the setup is not suitable for mission-critical workloads requiring high availability.
Option D, Cloud VPN with static routes, lacks dynamic routing and depends on the public internet. Static routes cannot adapt to topology changes without manual intervention.
Dedicated Interconnect with redundancy is the only solution delivering the full package: private transport, SLA guarantees, dynamic routing, redundancy, and deterministic network behavior.
Question 46
Your organization is moving from a single-project architecture to a multi-project structure on Google Cloud. You want to delegate day-to-day network management (subnets, routes, firewall rules, load balancer backends) to a central networking team, while application teams in service projects should only manage their own VMs and GKE clusters. The networking team must enforce consistent security policies and shared connectivity. Which design best satisfies the principle of least privilege and aligns with Google Cloud recommended practices?
A) Create separate standalone VPCs per project and connect them all with VPC Peering
B) Use a Shared VPC with a central host project and attach application projects as service projects
C) Give each team the Network Admin IAM role on their own standalone VPCs
D) Use Cloud VPN between all application projects and a central networking project
Answer:
B
Explanation:
The correct answer is B because Shared VPC is the recommended pattern for organizations that need a central networking team to manage common infrastructure while allowing application teams to focus on their workloads. In a Shared VPC setup, a host project owns the VPC networks, subnets, and core network policies. Application projects become service projects that attach to the Shared VPC. This allows the networking team to control firewall rules, routes, subnets, and core connectivity, while application teams create and manage instances, GKE clusters, and services in their own projects.
This strongly aligns with the principle of least privilege. The networking team gets roles like Network Admin and Security Admin on the host project, where they manage shared infrastructure and security baselines. Application teams only receive permissions in their service projects to manage their instances and services, but cannot alter the core network or security perimeter. This separation reduces misconfigurations, improves auditability, and simplifies compliance, because there is a single, centrally governed network plane.
Option A, creating separate standalone VPCs with VPC Peering, leads to a complex mesh of peering relationships. It does not centralize network administration, makes consistent security policy enforcement difficult, and becomes hard to scale. Each application team ends up managing its own VPC and associated policies, contrary to the goal of central management.
Option C, granting each team Network Admin on their own VPCs, fragments control and increases the risk of misconfigured firewalls, routes, and subnet allocations. It also undermines organization-wide governance, because every team can potentially create overlapping IP ranges or insecure rules.
Option D, using Cloud VPN between application projects and a central networking project, is unnecessarily complex, does not leverage Google’s native Shared VPC capabilities, and still requires each project to manage its own VPCs. VPN adds cost, operational complexity, and latency, while not solving the governance model as cleanly as Shared VPC.
Shared VPC is therefore the best design for central network administration combined with least-privilege access for application teams.
Question 47
You are designing an internet-facing web application hosted on Google Cloud. The application uses an External HTTP(S) Load Balancer with backend services in multiple regions. Your security requirements include protection against common web attacks, enforcement of IP allowlists for certain administrative paths, and the ability to block suspicious geographic regions. You also want to avoid managing your own network security appliances. Which Google Cloud feature should you integrate with your load balancer to meet these security requirements?
A) Cloud VPN with packet filters on-premises
B) VPC firewall rules applied to backend instances
C) Cloud Armor security policies attached to the External HTTP(S) Load Balancer
D) Cloud NAT with egress controls
Answer:
C
Explanation:
The correct answer is C because Cloud Armor is designed to protect applications fronted by Google Cloud HTTP(S) load balancers. By attaching Cloud Armor security policies to the External HTTP(S) Load Balancer, you can enforce IP-based allowlists for administrative paths, block or throttle requests from certain regions, and apply rules to mitigate common web-based attacks. Cloud Armor supports layer 7-aware rules, custom expressions, and preconfigured rules that help defend against threats such as SQL injection or cross-site scripting patterns. It also leverages Google’s global edge infrastructure, filtering malicious traffic before it reaches your backend instances.
Option A, Cloud VPN with on-prem packet filters, would require routing traffic through on-prem hardware, adding latency and operational overhead. It also conflicts with the requirement to avoid managing your own security appliances. VPN-based filtering is not integrated at the HTTP load balancer edge and lacks the application-aware rules that Cloud Armor provides.
Option B, VPC firewall rules, work at layer 3/4 and are applied to VM instances or subnets. While they can enforce basic IP and port restrictions, they cannot inspect HTTP paths, headers, or request properties. They also cannot selectively enforce policies on specific URLs or analyze request context, making them insufficient for protecting web applications at the level described.
Option D, Cloud NAT, is not relevant to web application protection. Cloud NAT is used to enable outbound internet access from instances without external IP addresses. It does not see inbound traffic and cannot enforce security policies on requests entering through an External HTTP(S) Load Balancer.
Cloud Armor is the only feature that integrates directly with Google’s HTTP(S) load balancers to offer robust, centralized, edge-level protection with layer 7 awareness, region-based blocking, and IP-based allowlists, fully satisfying the requirements.
Question 48
Your company runs workloads both on-premises and in Google Cloud. You want to use Cloud DNS as the primary DNS solution. Internal VM instances in Google Cloud must resolve on-premises hostnames, and on-prem systems must resolve internal hostnames in specific Google Cloud VPCs. You want central management, low latency, and minimal manual configuration of DNS forwarding rules on individual servers. Which design best meets these hybrid DNS resolution requirements?
A) Use only public DNS zones in Cloud DNS and expose all internal names publicly
B) Configure Cloud DNS private zones with Cloud DNS Peering and Cloud DNS forwarding to on-prem DNS
C) Run a DNS server on a Compute Engine instance and manually configure all forwarders
D) Use Private Google Access to resolve on-prem DNS names
Answer:
B
Explanation:
The correct answer is B because configuring Cloud DNS private zones combined with Cloud DNS Peering and Cloud DNS forwarding provides a scalable and centralized DNS architecture for hybrid environments. Private zones in Cloud DNS allow you to manage internal DNS names for resources inside your VPCs. Cloud DNS Peering lets you share private zones between VPCs without merging networks, and Cloud DNS forwarding enables Cloud DNS resolvers in Google Cloud to forward specific DNS queries to on-premises DNS servers. Likewise, on-premises DNS servers can be configured to forward specific domains to Cloud DNS, making name resolution symmetrical.
This design centralizes DNS management at the platform level rather than requiring per-host configuration. VM instances in the VPC automatically use the VPC’s DNS resolver, which then uses the configured forwarding rules to route queries appropriately. On-prem servers simply forward queries for cloud-specific domains to Cloud DNS resolvers, enabling them to resolve internal cloud hostnames.
Option A is not acceptable because using only public DNS zones would expose internal hostnames to the internet. This is usually a security and compliance violation and defeats the purpose of internal namespace isolation.
Option C, running a custom DNS server on a VM, adds unnecessary operational burden, including patching, scaling, and high availability concerns. It also does not integrate as cleanly with VPC-level DNS and increases the risk of misconfiguration.
Option D, Private Google Access, is unrelated to DNS resolution for on-prem names. Private Google Access allows instances with only internal IPs to access Google APIs via internal paths, but it does not provide DNS forwarding between on-prem and cloud networks.
The combination of private DNS zones, Cloud DNS Peering, and Cloud DNS forwarding provides a clean, scalable, and managed hybrid DNS solution, satisfying requirements for internal resolution, low latency, and minimal manual configuration.
Question 49
You have a multi-tier application deployed in a single Google Cloud VPC. Users report intermittent connectivity failures between a frontend managed instance group and a backend database instance. There is no obvious pattern to the failures, and pings sometimes succeed while application requests fail. You suspect a misconfigured firewall rule or routing issue. Which combination of Google Cloud tools should you use to systematically diagnose and verify connectivity, packet drops, and firewall behavior within the VPC?
A) Stackdriver Profiler and Cloud Scheduler
B) VPC Flow Logs and Connectivity Tests in Network Intelligence Center
C) Cloud NAT logs and Cloud Functions
D) Cloud Build and Cloud Source Repositories
Answer:
B
Explanation:
The correct answer is B because VPC Flow Logs and Connectivity Tests (part of Network Intelligence Center) are the primary tools for diagnosing network connectivity issues inside a VPC. VPC Flow Logs capture metadata about network flows, including source and destination IPs, ports, and whether traffic was allowed or denied by firewall rules. By examining these logs, you can identify whether traffic between the frontend and backend is being blocked, dropped, or successfully forwarded. Flow logs also help determine whether unexpected sources or destinations are involved.
Connectivity Tests in Network Intelligence Center allow you to perform point-to-point connectivity analysis between two endpoints, such as a VM to another VM, or a VM to a load balancer. The tool simulates traffic and inspects routing tables, firewall rules, routes, and other configuration details to determine whether connectivity should succeed or fail. It also provides detailed explanations of why traffic is blocked, such as a specific firewall rule or missing route. This makes it especially useful for diagnosing complex issues where misconfigurations may not be obvious.
Option A is unrelated to networking. Stackdriver Profiler (now part of Cloud Profiler) is used for performance profiling of application code, not for network-level diagnosis. Cloud Scheduler is used for scheduled tasks, not connectivity debugging.
Option C, Cloud NAT logs, only apply to instances using Cloud NAT for outbound internet access. The problem scenario concerns internal VPC traffic between a frontend and a backend, not egress traffic through NAT.
Option D, Cloud Build and Cloud Source Repositories, are CI/CD and source control tools, unrelated to runtime network troubleshooting.
Therefore, the best diagnostic approach combines VPC Flow Logs to observe real traffic behavior and Connectivity Tests to verify intended connectivity and discover configuration errors in firewalls or routes.
Question 50
An enterprise is designing its Google Cloud foundation. It wants a central networking team to control VPCs, subnet IP ranges, firewall rules, and hybrid connectivity. Multiple application teams will deploy workloads in separate projects but must all use the same centrally managed network. The enterprise also wants to avoid a complex mesh of VPC Peering relationships and maintain clear separation of billing and IAM policies per application team. Which design should the organization adopt?
A) Standalone VPCs per project with full VPC Peering mesh
B) Shared VPC with a host project and multiple service projects
C) A single monolithic project for all workloads
D) Multiple Dedicated Interconnects replacing the need for Shared VPC
Answer:
B
Explanation:
The correct answer is B because Shared VPC was created exactly for scenarios where a central team manages networking while multiple application teams use the same network resources from separate projects. In a Shared VPC design, a host project owns the VPC network configuration, including subnets, routes, and firewall rules. Application projects attach as service projects, allowing application teams to deploy instances and services that use the host project’s VPC without managing the underlying network configuration.
This model avoids the complexity of a full VPC Peering mesh. Instead of peering every project VPC with every other, all service projects simply attach to a single shared network. This also preserves project-level billing, IAM, and quotas, ensuring that each application team has its own project boundary for governance while still leveraging a common network stack. The central networking team sets global rules and hybrid connectivity, creating consistent ingress/egress controls and IP planning.
Option A, a full VPC Peering mesh, becomes extremely complicated as the number of projects grows. Peering is non-transitive and does not provide a centralized control plane for networking policies or hybrid connectivity.
Option C, using a single monolithic project, removes important isolation boundaries. It complicates billing separation, IAM delegation, and organizational structure. This approach does not scale well in large enterprises with many teams and workloads.
Option D, multiple Dedicated Interconnects, addresses hybrid connectivity, not multi-project network structure. Interconnect does not replace the need for a shared network model inside Google Cloud. It simply links on-prem networks to cloud VPCs.
Shared VPC with a host project and service projects is therefore the most appropriate and scalable design for a centrally managed network with clear separation of responsibilities and governance.
Question 51
Your organization is implementing a multi-region service architecture where front-end services in one region must securely communicate with back-end services in several other regions using private IPs only. You need full mutual TLS authentication, workload identity, layered authorization policies, and dynamic service discovery. The traffic must remain entirely on Google’s private backbone. You also need advanced capabilities like traffic shifting, outlier detection, retries, and centralized service-level telemetry. Which Google Cloud solution best satisfies these requirements end-to-end?
A) Global Internal HTTP(S) Load Balancer
B) Anthos Service Mesh with Traffic Director
C) Cloud VPN with custom certificates
D) VPC Peering with region-specific firewall rules
Answer:
B
Explanation:
The correct answer is B because Anthos Service Mesh combined with Traffic Director provides a complete platform for secure, identity-based, policy-driven communication between services across multiple Google Cloud regions. Anthos Service Mesh ensures that service-to-service communication is encrypted through mutual TLS by default, enforcing strong identity for every workload. It automatically manages certificate rotation, which is essential for operational resilience and compliance with enterprise-level security standards. This ensures that security does not rely solely on network constructs but is embedded at the workload layer.
Traffic Director further extends this by providing centralized traffic management across regions. It distributes policies and routing decisions to Envoy proxies that run alongside workloads. This approach allows advanced traffic control strategies such as shaping, splitting, and weighted canary deployments. It also supports outlier detection, circuit breaking, and request retries. These are critical components in large service architectures where resilience, fault isolation, and graceful degradation are mandatory requirements.
Option A, Global Internal HTTP(S) Load Balancer, routes traffic inside Google’s private network but does not support workload identity, mTLS between microservices, or dynamic discovery of service endpoints. It cannot enforce identity-aware authorization policies at the service-to-service level.
Option C, Cloud VPN, provides encrypted connectivity but is unnecessary inside Google Cloud and relies on the public internet path. It does not offer the advanced service-level features needed for zero-trust microservice architectures. Custom certificates require manual management and lack the automation of Anthos Service Mesh.
Option D, VPC Peering, supports private IP connectivity between VPCs but lacks service-aware identity, encryption, authorization, and traffic management controls. Administering granular firewall rules across multiple regions becomes complex and does not provide application-layer security controls.
Anthos Service Mesh with Traffic Director is the only solution that fully addresses cross-region, workload-level security, service discovery, traffic shaping, and policy management with minimal operational overhead.
Question 52
A financial institution must ensure that all data access to Google Cloud services such as BigQuery, Cloud Storage, and Pub/Sub is restricted to authorized networks only. They must comply with strict “no data exfiltration” policies that prevent workloads, compromised identities, or external networks from accessing sensitive data in these managed services. The architecture must support multi-project environments and centralized policy enforcement. Which Google Cloud security mechanism best accomplishes this?
A) VPC firewall rules
B) VPC Service Controls
C) Cloud Armor rules on load balancers
D) IAM Conditions with custom roles
Answer:
B
Explanation:
The correct answer is B because VPC Service Controls enforce a strong, Google-managed perimeter around sensitive resources like Cloud Storage, BigQuery, and Pub/Sub. This perimeter ensures that API requests cannot originate from unauthorized locations such as the public internet or unmanaged networks. Instead of relying solely on identity-based IAM controls, VPC Service Controls prevent data exfiltration even if IAM credentials are compromised or if a workload is attacked. The architecture works across multiple VPCs and projects, making it ideal for large enterprises with complex organizational structures.
Firewalls (Option A) operate at the network layer and cannot control access to Google-managed APIs. Firewall rules do not apply once a request reaches a managed service, making them insufficient for preventing exfiltration through APIs.
Option C, Cloud Armor, protects applications fronted by load balancers but cannot restrict internal API access to Google-managed services. It is designed for edge-level HTTP traffic, not service-level API calls.
Option D, IAM Conditions, strengthen identity controls but do not create a security perimeter. IAM alone cannot prevent exfiltration because a compromised identity can still make API calls from unexpected networks. IAM Conditions can specify constraints like source IP, but they are not reliable for multi-project, multi-network environments and do not scale like VPC Service Controls.
VPC Service Controls are designed specifically for regulated industries and provide the strongest data exfiltration protections available. They enforce a private, organization-selected boundary so that sensitive managed services remain protected regardless of identity compromise or configuration drift.
Question 53
A global e-commerce company needs to provide customers fast, low-latency access to media assets stored in Google Cloud Storage. The content must be delivered securely, with support for signed URLs, caching at edge locations, and automatic origin failover. The company wants a fully managed CDN solution without managing servers or network appliances. Which Google Cloud component should they use?
A) Cloud Interconnect
B) Cloud CDN integrated with an External HTTP(S) Load Balancer
C) Cloud NAT
D) Cloud Router
Answer:
B
Explanation:
The correct answer is B because Cloud CDN, when integrated with an External HTTP(S) Load Balancer, delivers cached content from Google’s global edge locations. This combination offers extremely low latency for users worldwide and supports secure features such as signed URLs to control access to private assets stored in Cloud Storage. Cloud CDN handles caching automatically and reduces load on backend services by serving frequently accessed content directly from edge caches.
Cloud CDN also supports automatic origin failover. When the load balancer detects issues with the primary origin (such as Cloud Storage or a backend service), it can route traffic to a backup origin seamlessly. This capability ensures high availability and resilience, which is critical in global e-commerce environments.
Option A, Cloud Interconnect, is used for private hybrid connectivity between on-prem networks and Google Cloud. It does not provide caching, edge distribution, or content delivery features.
Option C, Cloud NAT, manages outbound traffic for private VMs. It has nothing to do with inbound content delivery or global caching.
Option D, Cloud Router, exchanges dynamic routes between on-prem and cloud networks. It does not provide CDN features or edge caching.
Cloud CDN with an External HTTP(S) Load Balancer is the only solution that delivers secure, low-latency, globally distributed content with advanced features like signed URLs and automated failover.
Question 54
Your company operates a multi-tier internal application with strict network segmentation requirements. Database servers must only accept traffic from application servers, while application servers may only accept traffic from the internal load balancer. Administrators want a way to centrally audit firewall decisions, evaluate the impact of new firewall rules before deployment, and detect accidental rule conflicts. Which Google Cloud tool should be used to analyze and validate firewall behavior?
A) Cloud NAT Logs
B) Network Intelligence Center – Firewall Insights
C) Cloud Audit Logs only
D) Service Directory
Answer:
B
Explanation:
The correct answer is B because Firewall Insights (part of Network Intelligence Center) provides tools to analyze firewall rule behavior, detect rule conflicts, monitor shadowed or unused rules, and evaluate the impact of potential changes. Firewall Insights allows administrators to simulate how new rules will interact with existing ones before they are deployed, reducing the risk of accidental service disruptions. It also offers visibility into traffic allowed or denied by firewall rules, helping to identify misconfigurations or unnecessary exposure.
Option A, Cloud NAT Logs, only applies to instances using Cloud NAT and does not include firewall decision data for internal traffic.
Option C, Cloud Audit Logs, provides administrative visibility into who changed what but does not analyze firewall rule interactions or help simulate the impact of changes.
Option D, Service Directory, provides service registration and discovery but has no firewall analysis capabilities.
Firewall Insights is the only tool that helps organizations centrally evaluate and optimize firewall rules while maintaining security segmentation.
Question 55
A large enterprise with many application teams wants to deploy a standard networking architecture across dozens of new Google Cloud projects. The networking team requires consistent subnet CIDR allocation, centralized firewall policy management, shared hybrid connectivity, and organization-wide network visibility. Application teams must deploy workloads without having permission to modify routing, firewall rules, or VPC structure. Which Google Cloud architecture best fits this requirement?
A) Standalone VPCs per project with manually synchronized firewall rules
B) Shared VPC with host project and service projects for each application team
C) Multiple VPCs connected via NCC spoke-to-spoke routing
D) A single global VPC in one project for all workloads
Answer:
B
Explanation:
The correct answer is B because Shared VPC enables a central networking team to maintain ownership of critical network resources—such as subnets, IP address ranges, firewall rules, and hybrid connectivity—while application teams deploy their workloads inside service projects. This structure ensures consistent enforcement of security and routing policies, centralized logging, and simple maintenance. The host project contains the VPC, while each service project inherits the network without gaining permission to modify core resources, perfectly satisfying least-privilege requirements.
Option A, standalone VPCs per project, leads to fragmentation and inconsistent security controls. Manually synchronizing firewall rules across many projects is error-prone and difficult to scale.
Option C, NCC spoke-to-spoke routing, does not exist; NCC only supports hub-and-spoke. Even if misinterpreted, NCC does not solve central policy enforcement.
Option D, a single global VPC in one project, collapses governance boundaries and gives too much power to application teams. It also complicates billing separation and organizational structure.
Shared VPC is the enterprise-standard architecture for large organizations requiring centralized network governance with distributed application team autonomy.
Question 56
Your enterprise is migrating from a traditional data center architecture into Google Cloud. The environment must support hybrid connectivity using redundant Dedicated Interconnects with dynamic BGP routing. Multiple application teams will run workloads across different service projects, all using a Shared VPC hosted in a central networking project. The enterprise requires a scalable, centralized firewall security model that applies to all VMs and GKE nodes across all service projects, regardless of which region they run in. The architecture must simplify security operations, ensure consistent rules, and avoid repetitive firewall configuration across projects. Which Google Cloud networking feature best supports this requirement?
A) VPC firewall rules configured individually in each service project
B) Hierarchical firewall policies applied at the organization or folder level
C) Firewall rules associated only with subnet-level policies
D) Cloud Armor policies attached to Global External Load Balancers
Answer:
B
Explanation:
The correct answer is B because hierarchical firewall policies provide the strongest, most scalable, and centrally governed firewall enforcement model in Google Cloud. Hierarchical firewall policies allow security administrators to define firewall rules at the organization or folder level, ensuring that the same rules propagate across all projects under that hierarchy. This centralization is ideal when multiple application teams work across multiple service projects within a Shared VPC environment. Because service projects inherit the VPC and its networking structure from the host project, shared firewall enforcement becomes critical to maintain consistency and avoid misconfigurations.
Hierarchical firewall policies differ fundamentally from traditional VPC firewall rules in that they are evaluated before any project-level rules. This ensures that global enterprise policies—such as “deny all ingress except approved ports” or “allow only specific corporate IP ranges”—remain in place regardless of what individual project teams configure. The central security team can then implement guardrails, ensuring that application teams cannot override mandatory organizational security constraints. This is essential for enterprises migrating from traditional data centers where top-down network governance was the norm.
Option A, creating VPC firewall rules within each service project, does not satisfy the requirement for centralized management. It forces repeated configuration across dozens of projects and increases the risk of drift or inconsistent rules. Application teams could also accidentally override or misconfigure rules, opening security holes.
Option C, firewall rules associated with subnets, applies only at specific network segments but does not propagate across projects or guarantee uniform policy enforcement. While subnet-level scoping is useful in some designs, it does not provide organizational governance or centralized control across all service projects.
Option D, Cloud Armor, protects applications exposed via External HTTP(S) Load Balancers. It does not apply to internal VM-to-VM or GKE node-level traffic. Cloud Armor is an L7 protection system, not a replacement for VPC-level firewall enforcement. It does not control internal east-west traffic, which is a major security requirement in hybrid cloud environments.
Hierarchical firewall policies deliver precisely what the enterprise needs: consistent, scalable, centralized firewall governance across multiple Shared VPC service projects, ensuring uniform security posture compliance.
Question 57
A multinational corporation operates workloads in several Google Cloud regions and wants a comprehensive, unified network topology that includes on-premises data centers, regional VPCs, and inter-region connectivity. The enterprise requires dynamic route propagation, centralized visibility, and simplified hub-and-spoke architecture for both cloud-only and hybrid topologies. The solution must prevent transitive routing between spokes while allowing new VPCs and on-prem sites to be added without complex reconfiguration. Which Google Cloud service should the company use to build this architecture?
A) VPC Peering
B) Network Connectivity Center (NCC)
C) Cloud Router standalone
D) Shared VPC with expanded subnets
Answer:
B
Explanation:
The correct answer is B because Network Connectivity Center provides a scalable, enterprise-grade hub-and-spoke architecture specifically designed for hybrid and multi-VPC environments. NCC centralizes connectivity so that multiple VPCs (spokes), cloud environments, and on-prem locations can plug into a single connectivity hub. With NCC, companies can seamlessly integrate hybrid connectivity—such as Dedicated Interconnect, HA VPN, and Partner Interconnect—into a unified routing architecture. Additionally, NCC integrates with Cloud Router to support dynamic BGP routing, ensuring consistent route propagation and automated failover behavior.
NCC also enforces non-transitive connectivity between spokes, which is crucial for security and traffic governance. Each spoke only exchanges routes with the NCC hub, not with other spokes. This prevents lateral movement across unrelated VPCs and simplifies compliance with global network segmentation policies. The hub-and-spoke topology also minimizes operational complexity by reducing the need for full-mesh peering.
Option A, VPC Peering, becomes increasingly complex as more VPCs are added because peering is non-transitive and requires a fully connected mesh if every VPC needs connectivity to every other. This doesn’t scale well and leads to operational burden and IP overlap challenges.
Option C, Cloud Router standalone, is a component for dynamic routing but does not offer a hub-and-spoke architecture or centralized topology management. It must be combined with other networking tools; on its own, it cannot build a global hybrid topology.
Option D, Shared VPC, helps centralize networking within a single host project, but does not address multi-region, multi-VPC, or hybrid connectivity requirements. Shared VPC is ideal for internal multi-project architecture but not for global, hybrid, multi-domain routing.
Network Connectivity Center is the only option that fulfills all requirements for dynamic routing, unified topology, hybrid integration, non-transitive spokes, and centralized operational visibility.
Question 58
Your company is designing a private service platform where workloads in multiple tenant VPCs need to securely consume APIs hosted in a central producer VPC. Each tenant must access the API without exposing their networks or creating transitive trust relationships. The API must remain private, not publicly reachable, and tenants must not be able to access each other’s networks. The system must scale to hundreds of tenants with minimal operational overhead. Which Google Cloud solution best meets these requirements?
A) VPC Peering between each tenant and the producer VPC
B) Exposing the API via External HTTP(S) Load Balancer with IP allowlists
C) Private Service Connect consumer endpoints
D) Cloud VPN tunnels from each tenant VPC
Answer:
C
Explanation:
The correct answer is C because Private Service Connect is purpose-built for scalable, private, service-level connectivity across independent VPCs. PSC allows each tenant to create a private endpoint in their own VPC that connects directly to a PSC service endpoint in the producer VPC. This creates strict isolation between tenants because PSC exposes only the service, not the network. Each tenant receives a unique internal IP endpoint representing the service, and no tenant can discover or interact with other tenants or the underlying networks.
PSC is the ideal architecture for multi-tenant SaaS and managed service platforms because it centralizes access control and does not require complex routing or VPC-level interconnection. It scales seamlessly to hundreds or thousands of tenants, since each tenant creates only a lightweight consumer endpoint. The producer VPC does not need to maintain separate routing tables or VPC peering relationships for each tenant.
Option A, VPC Peering, is not suitable because it exposes entire VPC ranges between networks. Peering is non-transitive, cannot enforce tenant-level isolation, and makes it impossible to prevent unintended lateral access. A design using peering across many tenants creates security and scaling problems.
Option B, an External HTTP(S) Load Balancer, violates the requirement that the API must remain private and not publicly accessible. Even with IP allowlists, the service still uses a public endpoint, which is unacceptable for private-only communication.
Option D, Cloud VPN, would require each tenant to maintain a VPN tunnel and routing configuration. VPN introduces operational overhead, uses the public internet, and fails to provide scalable tenant isolation. It also exposes entire network segments, not just a private service endpoint.
PSC is therefore the only solution that meets all requirements: private access, tenant isolation, private IP connectivity, and high scalability.
Question 59
Your enterprise wants to implement a zero-trust network architecture across its Google Cloud environment. All internal service-to-service traffic must be authenticated, authorized, encrypted, and validated based on identity rather than IP address. You need consistent policy enforcement across multiple GKE clusters and VM-based workloads. You also want workload telemetry, centralized traffic policy management, and minimal reliance on traditional network perimeters. Which Google Cloud solution should you use to enforce this zero-trust model?
A) VPC firewall rules combined with IAM Conditions
B) Cloud Armor with GEO-based rules
C) Anthos Service Mesh
D) Private Google Access
Answer:
C
Explanation:
The correct answer is C because Anthos Service Mesh is designed to enforce zero-trust principles at the workload level. It ensures that all service-to-service traffic uses mutual TLS for authentication and encryption and that each workload uses an identity certificate issued by a managed control plane. These identities allow fine-grained authorization policies that validate not just source IP addresses but workload identities, namespaces, or service accounts. This is essential for building zero-trust systems where the network is considered untrusted by default.
Anthos Service Mesh also provides telemetry, request-level visibility, and traffic management tools that help enforce consistent governance across diverse workloads. Whether services run on GKE or Compute Engine VMs, Anthos Service Mesh enforces consistent authentication, authorization, encryption, and policy distribution. It removes the need for relying solely on network-layer controls, enabling identity-based workload security.
Option A, VPC firewall rules with IAM Conditions, operates at layers below where zero-trust enforcement needs to occur. Firewall rules rely on IP addresses and ports, not workload identity. IAM Conditions cannot provide service-level authentication or request-level encryption and cannot enforce identity validation on east-west service traffic.
Option B, Cloud Armor, applies only to HTTP(S) traffic entering through load balancers. It cannot protect internal service-to-service communication. Zero-trust models require internal workload identity verification, not just edge-based filtering.
Option D, Private Google Access, provides a way for VMs without external IPs to reach Google APIs privately. It does not provide identity, encryption, authorization, or workload-level policies.
Anthos Service Mesh is the closest Google Cloud-aligned solution for enforcing zero-trust at the service level, offering broad coverage, strong identity, encryption, and policy-driven traffic governance.
Question 60
A global logistics company needs extremely high availability for its mission-critical applications running across multiple Google Cloud regions. The company wants to use a global load balancer that terminates HTTPS at the edge, supports HTTP/2 and QUIC, performs health checks across regions, and routes users to the closest healthy backend. The architecture must support automatic failover when an entire region becomes unavailable. All traffic must remain on Google’s private backbone. Which Google Cloud load balancing product should the company choose?
A) Regional External HTTP(S) Load Balancer
B) Global External HTTP(S) Load Balancer (Premium Tier)
C) Internal HTTP(S) Load Balancer
D) TCP Proxy Load Balancer
Answer:
B
Explanation:
The correct answer is B because the Global External HTTP(S) Load Balancer (Premium Tier) offers worldwide distribution with intelligent routing, health checks across regions, and automatic failover. It terminates HTTPS at Google’s global edge locations close to users, reducing latency and enhancing reliability. It supports modern protocols such as HTTP/2 and QUIC, enabling faster connection establishment and better performance for mobile and global clients.
This global load balancer distributes traffic across backend services in multiple regions and uses real-time health checks to determine which regions are healthy. When a region or a zone fails, traffic automatically shifts to the nearest healthy region without manual intervention. Because the load balancer is part of Google’s Premium Tier network, all traffic remains on Google’s private backbone, ensuring predictable performance, low latency, and minimized exposure to the public internet.
Option A, the Regional External HTTP(S) Load Balancer, does not support multi-region global distribution. It is limited to a single region and cannot provide global failover capabilities.
Option C, Internal HTTP(S) Load Balancer, is designed for private, internal-only traffic and does not distribute traffic globally across public clients. It also does not terminate HTTPS at the edge.
Option D, TCP Proxy Load Balancer, supports global TCP-level load balancing but does not provide feature-rich HTTP/HTTPS traffic handling, nor does it support QUIC or advanced L7 routing.
The Global External HTTP(S) Load Balancer (Premium Tier) is the only product that supports edge termination, multi-region health checks, automatic failover, global distribution, and private backbone routing.
