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Question

Difficulty: EasyDesigning Infrastructure for Business Requirements and Cost Optimization

A startup is launching a simple, stateless HTTP REST API microservice to process incoming customer feedback forms. The traffic is highly unpredictable, with extended periods of zero incoming requests during off-peak hours. The business priority is to minimize total operational costs and eliminate idle infrastructure expenses with minimal management overhead. Which Google Cloud compute platform should the architecture team select?

  1. Deploy the containerized microservice to Cloud Run.Answer
  2. B
    Provision a Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE) Standard cluster with cluster autoscaling enabled.
  3. C
    Provision a dedicated pool of Compute Engine Virtual Machines backed by 3-year Committed Use Discounts (CUDs).
  4. D
    Deploy a high-availability multi-region Cloud Spanner cluster to execute the service logic.

Answer

Deploying the containerized microservice to Cloud Run is the optimal solution because it automatically scales down to zero instances when idle, incurring zero compute costs during off-peak hours while minimizing cluster management overhead.
Cloud Run is designed for stateless containerized HTTP services. It automatically scales compute instances down to zero when no traffic is present, ensuring zero expenditure during idle hours while eliminating cluster maintenance tasks.

Step-by-Step Solution

1
Analyze workload characteristics and business requirements.
The workload consists of a simple stateless HTTP API with unpredictable traffic and idle off-peak periods. The goal is cost minimization and minimal overhead.
Identifying that the service is stateless and experiences periods of zero traffic directs the choice toward serverless compute platforms.
2
Evaluate candidate compute platforms against cost and operational criteria.
Cloud Run supports containerized HTTP workloads, scales automatically to zero, charges only for consumed CPU/memory during request processing, and requires no infrastructure management.
Traditional VM pools or GKE clusters maintain fixed baseline running costs regardless of incoming request volume.

Key Concept

Serverless Compute Right-Sizing and Scaling to Zero
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Topics

Designing Infrastructure for Business Requirements and Cost Optimization