Google Associate Cloud EngineerPlanning and configuring a cloud solutionMedium
A global e-commerce company needs to ensure that their web application, hosted on Compute Engine, can withstand a regional outage without significant downtime. They want to use a DNS-based failover mechanism to automatically redirect traffic to a healthy region in case of an issue. Which Google Cloud service should they use for this purpose?
- ACloud VPN
- BVPC Service Controls
- CCloud Load Balancing (Regional)
- DCloud DNS with health checks and failover policies
Show answer & explanationAnswer & explanation
Correct answer: D. Cloud DNS with health checks and failover policies
Cloud DNS with health checks and failover policies allows you to define a primary and secondary set of IP addresses for a domain. If health checks fail for the primary, Cloud DNS automatically updates the DNS records to point to the secondary, enabling regional failover.
Why the other options are wrong
- A. Cloud VPN creates secure connections, not for DNS-based application failover.
- B. VPC Service Controls enhance data security, not for DNS-based traffic failover.
- C. Regional Cloud Load Balancing distributes traffic within a single region, not for cross-regional failover.
Cloud DNS Failover
Cloud DNS Failover uses health checks to monitor endpoints and automatically redirects traffic to healthy alternative endpoints (e.g., in another region) by updating DNS records when the primary endpoints fail.
- DNS-based traffic redirection
- Uses health checks to determine endpoint health
- Supports multi-region disaster recovery
Memory trick: DNS Failover: If one region's down, DNS points to the next town.