Professional Cloud ArchitectDesign and plan a cloud solution architectureHard

A financial services company is migrating its critical trading platform to Google Cloud. The platform requires extremely low latency access to a high-performance database and needs to maintain strict data residency requirements within a specific region. The application also experiences unpredictable, spiky workloads. Which database solution best meets these requirements?

  1. ACloud SQL for PostgreSQL
  2. BBigQuery
  3. CFirestore in Datastore mode
  4. DCloud Spanner
Show answer & explanation

Correct answer: D. Cloud Spanner

Cloud Spanner offers a unique combination of strong consistency, unlimited horizontal scalability, and transactional integrity, making it suitable for high-performance, low-latency applications with spiky workloads and strict data residency needs. Its regional configuration ensures data residency.

Why the other options are wrong

  • A. Cloud SQL is a regional relational database, but its scalability might be limited for 'unpredictable, spiky workloads' compared to Spanner's elastic scalability.
  • B. BigQuery is an analytical data warehouse, not suitable for transactional, low-latency operational workloads.
  • C. Firestore in Datastore mode is a NoSQL document database, offering eventual consistency and not typically chosen for strict relational integrity and the 'extremely low latency' transactional needs of a trading platform.

Cloud Spanner

A globally distributed, strongly consistent, relational database service built for mission-critical applications requiring high availability and unlimited horizontal scalability.

  • Relational semantics with ACID transactions
  • Horizontal scalability across regions/zones
  • High availability (99.999% SLA for multi-region)
  • Low latency for transactional workloads

Memory trick: Spanner: Global Scale, Local Control, Trading Success.

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