A system administrator needs to analyze detailed network traffic patterns, including source/destination IP addresses, ports, protocols, and byte counts, for all Compute Engine instances in a specific subnet to troubleshoot connectivity issues and identify potential security threats. Which Google Cloud service should be enabled and utilized?

Why the other options are wrong

• A. Cloud Trace is a distributed tracing system used to track requests as they propagate through microservices, primarily for performance analysis of applications, not for detailed network traffic analysis between VMs.
• B. Cloud Logging collects and stores logs from various Google Cloud services, but it does not inherently capture detailed network flow metadata like source/destination IPs and byte counts for individual network packets; it collects application and system logs.
• C. Packet Mirroring is used to clone traffic from specified VM instances and forward it to a collection instance (e.g., for deep packet inspection). While it captures traffic, VPC Flow Logs provide the aggregated metadata needed for general traffic pattern analysis and troubleshooting without requiring a separate collection instance.