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Professional Cloud ArchitectDesign and plan a cloud solution architectureHard

A global company is migrating its customer-facing web application to Google Cloud. The application experiences unpredictable traffic spikes, requires automatic scaling, and must serve content with extremely low latency to users worldwide. The application's backend processes are stateless. Which compute and networking services should be combined to meet these requirements efficiently?

  1. AApp Engine Standard with a Global External HTTP(S) Load Balancer.
  2. BGoogle Kubernetes Engine (GKE) Autopilot with a Regional External HTTP(S) Load Balancer.
  3. CCloud Run with a Global External HTTP(S) Load Balancer.
  4. DCompute Engine with Managed Instance Groups and a Regional External HTTP(S) Load Balancer.
Show answer & explanation

Correct answer: C. Cloud Run with a Global External HTTP(S) Load Balancer.

Cloud Run is a serverless platform ideal for stateless containers, providing automatic scaling from zero to thousands and pay-per-use billing. Combining it with a Global External HTTP(S) Load Balancer ensures low latency for global users by routing traffic to the nearest Cloud Run service and providing a single global IP.

Why the other options are wrong

  • A. App Engine Standard is an option, but Cloud Run offers more flexibility with containers and is often more cost-effective for stateless microservices due to its 'scale to zero' capability. The global load balancer is correct.
  • B. GKE Autopilot manages the underlying cluster, but still has more operational overhead than Cloud Run. A regional load balancer would not provide global low latency. While GKE is powerful, Cloud Run is a more 'serverless' and often more efficient fit for stateless web apps with unpredictable traffic.
  • D. While Managed Instance Groups provide auto-scaling, Compute Engine still involves VM management overhead. A regional load balancer would not provide global low latency.

Cloud Run

A fully managed serverless platform for stateless containers, offering auto-scaling from zero, pay-per-use billing, and flexible language support.

  • Serverless and fully managed
  • Runs stateless containers
  • Scales automatically from zero to thousands
  • Pay-per-use billing, cost-efficient for unpredictable loads

Memory trick: Cloud Run runs your code, the Global Load Balancer routes the world.

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