Question

Difficulty: HardSelecting and Designing Storage and Database Resources

An enterprise operating strictly within a single GCP region needs to migrate an on-premises PostgreSQL database supporting an enterprise resource planning (ERP) system to Google Cloud. The workload requires full ACID compliance, complex relational SQL joins, automated cross-zone high availability failover, and support for up to 2,000 IOPS on a 600 GB database. The system does not require global read/write distribution or multi-region replication. Cost optimization and low operational overhead are primary business drivers. Which storage and database strategy should the Cloud Architect recommend?

  1. Deploy a Cloud SQL for PostgreSQL instance configured with High Availability (regional configuration across two zones) and dynamic storage growth enabled.Answer
  2. B
    Provision a Cloud Spanner instance configured with a multi-region instance configuration to ensure maximum relational availability.
  3. C
    Deploy a single-zone Cloud SQL for PostgreSQL instance configured with Customer-Supplied Encryption Keys (CSEK) stored in application code to satisfy encryption compliance.
  4. D
    Deploy a single-zone Cloud SQL for PostgreSQL instance relying solely on granular IAM database user roles to prevent unauthorized data exfiltration to external Cloud Storage buckets.

Answer

Deploy a Cloud SQL for PostgreSQL instance configured with High Availability (regional configuration across two zones) and dynamic storage growth enabled.
Cloud SQL for PostgreSQL configured with High Availability provisions a primary instance and a standby instance in two separate availability zones within the same region. Data is synchronously replicated to the standby persistent disk, enabling automated failover in the event of an outage. This fulfills all requirements for ACID transactions, complex joins, high availability, and performance while remaining cost-optimized for a single-region deployment.

Step-by-Step Solution

1
Analyze workload architectural constraints and data access patterns
The workload is localized to a single GCP region with a 600 GB relational dataset and 2,000 IOPS requirement, needing strict ACID transactions and relational SQL capabilities.
Single-region relational workloads without massive horizontal scaling needs do not warrant global database services.
2
Evaluate candidate GCP database options against availability and cost requirements
Cloud SQL for PostgreSQL configured for High Availability provisions primary and standby nodes in separate zones with synchronous replication, meeting the SLA and zero-data-loss RPO requirements.
Cloud SQL HA provides managed cross-zone failover while keeping operational complexity and baseline costs low.
3
Eliminate misaligned and over-engineered alternatives
Cloud Spanner is over-engineered for single-region workloads, while single-zone options fail the high-availability requirement and introduce key management or security misunderstandings.
Selecting the minimal managed service that satisfies all technical constraints optimizes Cloud FinOps and reliability.

Key Concept

Selecting Cloud SQL over Cloud Spanner for single-region relational database workloads
Estimated Time:2m 0s
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