About This Flashcard Deck
This flashcard deck contains 10 cards covering key Cloud Architect concepts for the PCA exam. Test your GCP architecture knowledge. Use active recall by attempting to answer each question before revealing the answer.
Question
What is Shared VPC?
Click to reveal answer
Answer
Allows resources in multiple projects to use a single shared VPC network. Host project owns the VPC; service projects use it.
Click to flip back
All Cloud Architect Flashcards
Q: What is Shared VPC?
A: Allows resources in multiple projects to use a single shared VPC network. Host project owns the VPC; service projects use it.
Q: What is VPC Service Controls?
A: Creates a security perimeter around GCP resources to prevent data exfiltration. Controls API access even for authorized users.
Q: What is the difference between CMEK and CSEK?
A: CMEK: Customer-Managed Encryption Key (you manage keys in Cloud KMS). CSEK: Customer-Supplied Encryption Key (you supply the key with each API call).
Q: What is a Committed Use Discount?
A: 1-year (37% off) or 3-year (55% off) commitment for Compute Engine and Cloud SQL resources.
Q: What is Anthos?
A: Google's hybrid/multi-cloud platform. Run GKE clusters on-prem, in GCP, or in other clouds with unified management.
Q: What are SLOs, SLIs, and error budgets?
A: SLI: Service Level Indicator (metric). SLO: Service Level Objective (target for SLI). Error budget: allowed downtime = 100% - SLO.
Q: When to use Cloud Spanner vs Cloud SQL?
A: Cloud SQL: regional, cost-effective. Cloud Spanner: global scale, strong consistency, horizontal scaling. Spanner costs more.
Q: What is a Spot VM?
A: Preemptible VM replacement. Up to 91% discount. Can be reclaimed with 30-second notice. Use for fault-tolerant batch workloads.
Q: What is Cloud Interconnect?
A: Dedicated (physical connection) or Partner (through ISP) private connectivity from on-premises to GCP VPC. Lower latency than VPN.
Q: What is Cloud CDN?
A: Content Delivery Network that caches content at Google edge locations. Works with HTTPS load balancers.
GCP Flashcard Study Approach
Google Cloud exams emphasise service selection and architecture decisions. Use these flashcards to build instant recall of GCP service capabilities, then apply that knowledge to scenario-based practice questions. Pay special attention to cards about managed vs. unmanaged services and serverless options — GCP strongly favours managed and serverless architectures in their exam scenarios.