Reliability design principles in GCP - Interactive Code Practice

Practice - 5 Tasks

1fill in blank

easy

Complete the code to create a managed instance group with automatic healing.

GCP

gcloud compute instance-groups managed create my-group --base-instance-name my-instance --size [1] --template my-template --zone us-central1-a

Drag options to blanks, or click blank then click option'

A3

B1

C0

D5

Attempts:

3 left

💡 Hint

Common Mistakes

Setting size to 0 disables the group.

Setting size too high without need increases cost.

The size parameter sets the number of instances. Setting it to 1 ensures at least one instance is running for reliability.

2fill in blank

medium

Complete the code to enable health checks for the instance group.

GCP

gcloud compute instance-groups managed set-autohealing --instance-group my-group --health-check [1] --initial-delay 300 --zone us-central1-a

Drag options to blanks, or click blank then click option'

Ahealth-check-1

Bdefault-check

Cmy-health-check

Dcheck-health

Attempts:

3 left

💡 Hint

Common Mistakes

Using a non-existent health check name.

Typos in the health check name.

The health check name must match the existing health check resource to enable autohealing.

3fill in blank

hard

Fix the error in the command to create a regional managed instance group.

GCP

gcloud compute instance-groups managed create my-regional-group --base-instance-name my-instance --size 2 --template my-template --region [1]

Drag options to blanks, or click blank then click option'

Aus-central1

Bus-central1-c

Cus-central1-b

Dus-central1-a

Attempts:

3 left

💡 Hint

Common Mistakes

Using a zone name instead of a region name.

Confusing region and zone parameters.

Regional instance groups require a region, not a zone. 'us-central1' is a region, while 'us-central1-a' is a zone.

4fill in blank

hard

Fill both blanks to configure a Cloud Storage bucket with versioning and lifecycle rule.

GCP

gsutil mb -l [1] gs://my-bucket/
gsutil versioning set on gs://my-bucket/
gsutil lifecycle set [2] gs://my-bucket

Drag options to blanks, or click blank then click option'

Aus-central1

B{"rule": [{"action": {"type": "Delete"}, "condition": {"age": 30}}]}

Ceurope-west1

D{"rule": [{"action": {"type": "SetStorageClass", "storageClass": "NEARLINE"}, "condition": {"age": 30}}]}

Attempts:

3 left

💡 Hint

Common Mistakes

Using a zone instead of a region for bucket location.

Incorrect JSON format for lifecycle rules.

The bucket location is set to 'us-central1' for low latency. The lifecycle JSON deletes objects older than 30 days to manage storage costs.

5fill in blank

hard

Fill all three blanks to create a Pub/Sub subscription with message retention and dead-letter topic.

GCP

gcloud pubsub subscriptions create my-subscription --topic my-topic --message-retention-duration=[1] --dead-letter-topic=[2] --max-delivery-attempts=[3]

Drag options to blanks, or click blank then click option'

A10m

Bprojects/my-project/topics/dead-letter-topic

C5

D24h

Attempts:

3 left

💡 Hint

Common Mistakes

Using short retention times that lose messages too soon.

Incorrect dead-letter topic format.

Setting max delivery attempts too high or too low.

Message retention is set to 24 hours to keep messages available. The dead-letter topic is specified by its full path. Max delivery attempts is 5 to limit retries.

Practice

1. Which of the following is a key reliability design principle in Google Cloud Platform (GCP)?

easy

A. Disable monitoring to save costs

B. Use only one zone to reduce complexity

C. Distribute resources across multiple zones to avoid single points of failure

D. Avoid backups to speed up deployment

Solution

1. Step 1: Understand reliability basics in GCP

   Reliability means keeping services running even if parts fail. Using multiple zones helps avoid single points of failure.

2. Step 2: Evaluate each option

   Only distributing resources across zones improves reliability. Using one zone or disabling monitoring/backups reduces reliability.

3. Final Answer:

   Distribute resources across multiple zones to avoid single points of failure -> Option C

4. Quick Check:

   Multi-zone deployment = Reliable service [OK]

Hint: Think about avoiding single points of failure [OK]

Common Mistakes:

• Choosing single zone for simplicity
• Ignoring monitoring importance
• Skipping backups to save time

2. Which GCP service feature helps improve reliability by automatically restarting failed instances?

easy

A. BigQuery scheduled queries

B. Cloud Storage versioning

C. Cloud Functions triggers

D. Managed instance group with auto-healing

Solution

1. Step 1: Identify features that improve instance reliability

   Managed instance groups can automatically restart or replace failed VM instances, improving reliability.

2. Step 2: Match features to options

   Cloud Storage versioning protects data, Cloud Functions triggers run code, BigQuery schedules queries but do not auto-restart instances.

3. Final Answer:

   Managed instance group with auto-healing -> Option D

4. Quick Check:

   Auto-healing = Instance reliability [OK]

Hint: Auto-healing means automatic restart of failed instances [OK]

Common Mistakes:

• Confusing data versioning with instance recovery
• Thinking triggers restart instances
• Assuming scheduled queries affect VM health

3. Consider this GCP setup: A Compute Engine VM runs in zone us-central1-a with no backups or snapshots. What happens if the zone experiences an outage?

medium

A. The VM automatically moves to another zone without downtime

B. The VM becomes unavailable until the zone recovers or manual action is taken

C. The VM data is preserved and accessible from other zones instantly

D. The VM restarts automatically in a different region

Solution

1. Step 1: Understand zone outage impact on single-zone VM

   If a VM runs only in one zone without backups, an outage in that zone makes the VM unavailable.

2. Step 2: Analyze options for VM behavior

   Automatic movement or restart in other zones requires multi-zone setup or managed groups, which is missing here.

3. Final Answer:

   The VM becomes unavailable until the zone recovers or manual action is taken -> Option B

4. Quick Check:

   Single zone outage = VM downtime [OK]

Hint: Single zone failure means VM downtime without backups [OK]

Common Mistakes:

• Assuming automatic failover without multi-zone setup
• Confusing data preservation with availability
• Thinking VM restarts in different region automatically

4. You deployed a Cloud SQL instance without enabling automated backups. After accidental data deletion, you cannot restore the data. What is the main reliability design mistake here?

medium

A. Not enabling automated backups for recovery

B. Not enabling logging for audit

C. Not using a managed instance group

D. Not using multiple zones for the instance

Solution

1. Step 1: Identify recovery options for Cloud SQL

   Automated backups allow restoring data after accidental deletion.

2. Step 2: Match mistake to options

   Without backups, recovery is impossible. Multi-zone improves availability but not data recovery. Managed groups and logging do not restore data.

3. Final Answer:

   Not enabling automated backups for recovery -> Option A

4. Quick Check:

   Backups enable data recovery [OK]

Hint: Backups are essential for data recovery [OK]

Common Mistakes:

• Confusing availability with data recovery
• Thinking multi-zone replaces backups
• Ignoring backup importance

5. You want to design a highly reliable web application on GCP that remains available even if an entire region fails. Which combination of design principles should you apply?

hard

A. Distribute instances across multiple regions with load balancing and automated failover

B. Use a single zone with Cloud Storage backups and manual failover

C. Deploy instances in multiple zones within one region and enable auto-healing

D. Deploy all resources in one region and rely on Cloud Monitoring alerts

Solution

1. Step 1: Understand regional failure impact

   To survive a whole region failure, resources must be in multiple regions, not just zones.

2. Step 2: Evaluate design options

   Multi-zone in one region protects only against zone failure. Single zone with backups is slow and manual. One region with monitoring does not prevent downtime. Multi-region with load balancing and failover ensures high availability.

3. Final Answer:

   Distribute instances across multiple regions with load balancing and automated failover -> Option A

4. Quick Check:

   Multi-region + failover = High availability [OK]

Hint: Multi-region deployment handles region failures [OK]

Common Mistakes:

• Confusing zone and region failures
• Relying on manual failover
• Ignoring load balancing benefits