Google Cloud Digital LeaderDigital transformation with Google CloudHard
A startup is building a new mobile gaming platform that expects extremely high concurrency and global user distribution. The platform requires a database that can scale horizontally to handle millions of simultaneous users, maintain strong consistency across continents, and offer relational database features. Which Google Cloud database service is best suited for these requirements?
- ACloud Spanner
- BCloud SQL
- CFirestore
- DBigtable
Show answer & explanationAnswer & explanation
Correct answer: A. Cloud Spanner
Cloud Spanner is a globally distributed, strongly consistent, and horizontally scalable relational database service. It uniquely combines the benefits of relational databases (strong consistency, SQL queries) with non-relational scalability, making it ideal for applications requiring high concurrency and global distribution with strong consistency guarantees.
Why the other options are wrong
- B. Cloud SQL is a regional relational database, not designed for global, horizontal scalability with strong consistency across continents.
- C. Firestore is a NoSQL document database, offering eventual consistency and not suitable for relational features with strong global consistency guarantees.
- D. Bigtable is a NoSQL wide-column database, designed for analytical workloads and high throughput, but it's not a relational database and doesn't offer strong global consistency in the same way as Spanner.
Cloud Spanner
A globally distributed, strongly consistent, and horizontally scalable relational database service.
- Combines relational features with horizontal scalability
- Strong global consistency
- High availability and fault tolerance
Memory trick: Spanner 'spans' the globe with strong consistency, like a master key.