Cloud Run vs Cloud Functions decision in GCP - Practice Questions

Challenge - 5 Problems

🧠 Conceptual

intermediate

Choosing between Cloud Run and Cloud Functions for HTTP workloads

You have a simple HTTP API that needs to scale automatically and handle short requests. Which service is best suited for this?

A Cloud Run, because it supports containerized apps and scales automatically for HTTP requests.

B Cloud Functions, because it only supports background tasks, not HTTP requests.

C Cloud Run, because it requires manual scaling and is better for batch jobs.

D Cloud Functions, because it cannot scale automatically.

💡 Hint

Think about which service supports containers and automatic scaling for HTTP.

Cloud Run supports containerized applications and automatically scales based on HTTP traffic. Cloud Functions also supports HTTP but is more limited to function code rather than full containers.

❓ Architecture

intermediate

Selecting a service for event-driven processing with short execution time

You want to process events from a Pub/Sub topic with a function that runs quickly and scales automatically. Which service should you choose?

A Cloud Functions, because it natively integrates with Pub/Sub and scales automatically for short tasks.

B Cloud Run, because it is designed for event-driven functions only.

C Cloud Run, because it cannot be triggered by Pub/Sub events.

D Cloud Functions, because it requires manual scaling for event triggers.

💡 Hint

Consider which service integrates directly with Pub/Sub and is optimized for short event processing.

Cloud Functions natively supports Pub/Sub triggers and automatically scales for short-lived event processing. Cloud Run can be triggered by Pub/Sub but requires additional setup.

❓ security

advanced

Securing a Cloud Run service with authentication

You deploy a Cloud Run service that should only be accessible by authenticated users from your organization. Which approach enforces this?

A Set the Cloud Run service to allow unauthenticated invocations and rely on app code for authentication.

B Make the Cloud Run service public and use firewall rules to block external IPs.

C Use Cloud Functions instead, because Cloud Run cannot restrict access.

D Configure Cloud Run to require authentication and use Identity-Aware Proxy (IAP) to restrict access to your organization.

💡 Hint

Think about built-in Google Cloud tools for authentication and access control.

Cloud Run can require authentication and integrates with IAP to restrict access to users in your organization. Allowing unauthenticated access or relying on firewall rules is less secure.

✅ Best Practice

advanced

Optimizing cost for a service with unpredictable traffic

You have a backend service with unpredictable traffic spikes. You want to minimize cost while ensuring fast response times. Which service and configuration is best?

A Use Cloud Functions with manual scaling to control costs.

B Use Cloud Run with minimum instances set to zero to scale down to zero when idle and scale up quickly on demand.

C Use Cloud Run with minimum instances set to a high number to avoid cold starts.

D Use Cloud Functions with a fixed number of instances to handle spikes.

💡 Hint

Consider how to balance cost and performance with scaling settings.

Cloud Run can scale down to zero instances to save cost and scale up quickly on demand. Setting minimum instances high increases cost. Cloud Functions scales automatically but you cannot fix instance count.

❓ service_behavior

expert

Understanding request timeout behavior differences

You deploy a Cloud Function and a Cloud Run service. Both receive HTTP requests that take 10 minutes to process. What happens to the requests?

A Cloud Run will timeout before 10 minutes; Cloud Functions can handle requests longer than 10 minutes.

B Both Cloud Functions and Cloud Run allow unlimited request duration by default.

C Cloud Functions will timeout before 10 minutes; Cloud Run can be configured to allow 10-minute or longer requests.

D Both services timeout at exactly 5 minutes and drop the requests.

💡 Hint

Check default and maximum request timeout limits for each service.

Cloud Functions has a maximum timeout of 9 minutes. Cloud Run allows configuring request timeout up to 60 minutes or more, so it can handle longer requests.