Deployment Manager as native IaC in GCP - Practice Problems & Coding Challenges

Challenge - 5 Problems

🧠 Conceptual

intermediate

Understanding Deployment Manager Templates

What is the primary purpose of a template in Google Cloud Deployment Manager?

A To store user credentials for cloud access

B To define reusable resource configurations for deployments

C To monitor deployed resources in real-time

D To automatically scale virtual machines based on load

💡 Hint

Think about what you reuse when creating multiple similar resources.

Templates in Deployment Manager define reusable resource configurations, allowing you to deploy consistent infrastructure repeatedly.

❓ Configuration

intermediate

YAML Configuration for a Compute Engine Instance

Given the following Deployment Manager YAML snippet, how many VM instances will be created?

resources:
- name: my-vm
  type: compute.v1.instance
  properties:
    zone: us-central1-a
    machineType: zones/us-central1-a/machineTypes/n1-standard-1
    disks:
    - deviceName: boot
      type: PERSISTENT
      boot: true
      autoDelete: true
      initializeParams:
        sourceImage: projects/debian-cloud/global/images/family/debian-10
    networkInterfaces:
    - network: global/networks/default
      accessConfigs:
      - name: External NAT
        type: ONE_TO_ONE_NAT

A Depends on the number of zones

B 0

C 1

D 2

💡 Hint

Count the resource entries defined in the YAML.

There is one resource named 'my-vm' of type compute.v1.instance, so one VM instance will be created.

❓ Architecture

advanced

Deployment Manager Resource Dependencies

In Deployment Manager, if you want to ensure a Cloud Storage bucket is created before a Compute Engine instance that uses it, which approach correctly enforces this order?

A Use the 'dependsOn' field in the instance resource to reference the bucket resource

B Create the bucket and instance in separate deployments

C Deploy the instance first, then the bucket manually

D Specify the bucket name as a property without dependencies

💡 Hint

Think about how to tell Deployment Manager about resource creation order.

The 'dependsOn' field explicitly tells Deployment Manager to create the bucket before the instance, ensuring correct order.

❓ security

advanced

Managing Secrets in Deployment Manager

Which is the best practice to handle sensitive data like API keys in Deployment Manager templates?

A Send secrets via email to deployment team before deployment

B Hardcode API keys directly in the YAML configuration

C Include secrets in public Git repositories for easy access

D Store secrets in Google Secret Manager and reference them in templates

💡 Hint

Consider secure storage options provided by Google Cloud.

Using Google Secret Manager to store and reference secrets keeps sensitive data secure and separate from code.

❓ service_behavior

expert

Deployment Manager Update Behavior

When you update a Deployment Manager configuration that changes the machine type of a Compute Engine instance, what is the expected behavior during deployment update?

A Deployment Manager deletes the existing instance and creates a new one with the new machine type

B Deployment Manager updates the machine type in place without downtime

C Deployment Manager ignores the change and keeps the old machine type

D Deployment Manager pauses the deployment and requires manual intervention

💡 Hint

Think about how immutable some resource properties are in GCP.

Changing machine type requires recreating the instance, so Deployment Manager deletes the old instance and creates a new one.