Question

Difficulty: MediumCapacity Planning and Infrastructure Workload Scaling Optimization

An enterprise digital publishing platform is preparing for a scheduled major global news event projected to surge traffic by 500% over a 3-hour period. The core application runs on Google Cloud using a Compute Engine Managed Instance Group (MIG) with CPU-based autoscaling. Capacity evaluation shows that scaling to the required 400 N2 virtual machines will exceed the project's current regional CPU quota. Which capacity planning strategy should the Cloud Architect implement to ensure the infrastructure successfully scales during the event?

  1. Submit a quota increase request for regional N2 CPUs in advance and create zonal capacity reservations for the required instance count.Answer
  2. B
    Migrate the application workload from Compute Engine to Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE) to bypass Compute Engine quota restrictions.
  3. C
    Provision a Dedicated Interconnect connection to expand hybrid network bandwidth prior to the traffic spike.
  4. D
    Rely on the MIG autoscaling policy to dynamically request additional quota from Google Cloud when CPU utilization reaches 80%.

Answer

Submit a quota increase request for regional N2 CPUs in advance and create zonal capacity reservations for the required instance count.
Submitting an advance regional quota increase request ensures project limits allow the necessary N2 vCPU allocation. Combining quota increases with zonal capacity reservations guarantees that physical hardware remains available in specified zones during large-scale autoscaling.

Step-by-Step Solution

1
Evaluate planned compute capacity against current project limits.
Identified that scaling to 400 N2 instances exceeds default regional vCPU quota bounds.
Compute Engine resource allocation in any region is governed by fixed project quotas.
2
Submit a quota increase request via GCP Service Quotas.
Ensures the project is approved to consume the required number of regional N2 vCPUs.
Quota increases require evaluation/approval and cannot be automatically granted during an automated scale-out event.
3
Establish zonal capacity reservations for the target instance properties.
Guarantees physical compute capacity availability in target zones when the MIG scales out.
Quota approval provides permission to consume resources but does not reserve physical hardware against zone-level resource contention.

Key Concept

Proactive capacity management through regional quota expansion and zonal compute reservations for predictable traffic spikes.
Rate this question