Professional Cloud ArchitectManage and provision solution infrastructureMedium
A developer needs to quickly deploy a simple, stateless microservice that responds to HTTP requests. The microservice experiences unpredictable traffic patterns, with periods of high demand followed by long idle times. The company wants a fully managed, serverless solution that scales automatically to zero when not in use and handles bursts of traffic efficiently, with minimal operational overhead. Which Google Cloud compute service should the developer use?
- AGoogle Kubernetes Engine (GKE)
- BApp Engine Standard environment
- CCompute Engine
- DCloud Run
Show answer & explanationAnswer & explanation
Correct answer: D. Cloud Run
Cloud Run is a fully managed, serverless platform for deploying containerized applications. It automatically scales based on requests, scales to zero when idle (saving costs), and requires minimal operational overhead, making it ideal for stateless microservices with unpredictable traffic.
Why the other options are wrong
- A. GKE offers powerful container orchestration but requires more operational management than Cloud Run and does not inherently scale to zero without additional configuration.
- B. App Engine Standard environment is serverless and scales well, but Cloud Run offers more flexibility with containers and scales to zero more efficiently for HTTP-driven microservices.
- C. Compute Engine provides IaaS VMs, requiring manual scaling and significant operational overhead, not serverless.
Cloud Run
A fully managed serverless platform for running containerized applications, scaling automatically from zero to N instances.
- Supports any language or library that can be containerized.
- Scales automatically to zero when idle.
- Pay-per-use pricing, minimal operational overhead.
Memory trick: Cloud Run runs containers, then rests at zero.