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Difficulty: MediumSelecting and Designing Storage and Database Resources

A healthcare provider is designing a new electronic health records (EHR) management system on Google Cloud. The system requires a relational database that supports full ACID transactions, standard SQL queries, and automated regional high availability across zones within a single GCP region. The application's performance requirement is modest, capped at 3,000 IOPS, and does not demand global multi-region write scalability. Which database architecture should the Cloud Architect recommend to meet these technical requirements while minimizing overall cost and operational complexity?

  1. Provision a Cloud SQL for PostgreSQL instance configured with High Availability (HA) enabled across two zones in the target region.Answer
  2. B
    Deploy a multi-region Cloud Spanner instance to store the transactional health records with automatic synchronous replication.
  3. C
    Order a Google Cloud Transfer Appliance to continuously stream real-time transactional database updates to Cloud Storage buckets.
  4. D
    Implement a Cloud Bigtable cluster utilizing Customer-Supplied Encryption Keys (CSEK) to store the structured transactional records.

Answer

Provisioning Cloud SQL for PostgreSQL with regional High Availability enabled across two zones is the optimal choice for single-region relational workloads requiring ACID transactions and standard SQL.
Cloud SQL for PostgreSQL provides a fully managed relational database supporting standard SQL and ACID transactions. Enabling regional High Availability (HA) across two availability zones satisfies the single-region availability requirement efficiently without incurring the substantially higher cost of global relational database engines.

Step-by-Step Solution

1
Analyze the workload requirements
Identified relational data structure, ACID compliance requirement, single-region deployment scope, modest IOPS requirement (3,000 IOPS), and regional high availability need.
Matching technical requirements directly against database service capabilities prevents over-provisioning and minimizes architectural complexity.
2
Evaluate regional relational database options
Cloud SQL provides native PostgreSQL compatibility, full ACID transactions, standard SQL support, and automated cross-zone high availability failover within a single region.
Cloud SQL is specifically optimized for fully managed relational workloads contained within a single GCP region.
3
Eliminate non-matching and over-engineered alternatives
Cloud Spanner is unnecessary due to single-region scope, Cloud Bigtable lacks relational transactions, and Transfer Appliance is designed for offline data transport.
GCP Cloud Architect principles mandate selecting the simplest, most cost-effective managed service that fulfills all functional requirements.

Key Concept

Selecting Cloud SQL vs. Cloud Spanner based on regional scope and transactional requirements
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Topics

Selecting and Designing Storage and Database Resources