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A global financial institution is deploying a new critical application on Google Cloud. The application processes sensitive financial transactions and requires extremely low-latency access to a globally distributed, strongly consistent database. The solution must provide transactional integrity across multiple regions and high availability with automatic sharding and replication. Which Google Cloud database service is the most appropriate choice?
- ACloud Spanner
- BBigtable
- CCloud SQL
- DFirestore
Show answer & explanationAnswer & explanation
Correct answer: A. Cloud Spanner
Cloud Spanner is a globally distributed, strongly consistent relational database service that offers transactional integrity, high availability, and automatic sharding and replication across multiple regions. This makes it ideal for critical financial applications requiring low-latency access and strong consistency worldwide.
Why the other options are wrong
- B. Bigtable is a wide-column NoSQL database designed for massive analytical and operational workloads, but it offers eventual consistency and is not a relational database with strong transactional guarantees across regions.
- C. Cloud SQL is a regional relational database and does not offer global distribution with strong consistency and automatic sharding across regions.
- D. Firestore is a NoSQL document database, offering eventual consistency or strong consistency within a region, but not globally distributed transactional integrity across regions like Spanner.
Cloud Spanner
Cloud Spanner is a globally distributed, strongly consistent, and highly available relational database service for mission-critical applications.
- Global distribution with strong consistency.
- Relational database features (SQL, transactions).
- Automatic sharding and replication.
- Designed for high availability and mission-critical workloads.
Memory trick: Spanner spans the globe with strong consistency and transactions.