Medium1 markMultiple Choice
Subtask 5.3: Cost OptimizationCost OptimizationCUDsCompute EngineFinOps
This question is part of a case study — click to read the full scenario(Case 01)

CASE STUDY: TechStream Gaming

Company Overview:
TechStream Gaming is a global multiplayer game developer with 500 employees and $100M annual revenue. They recently launched a hit mobile game that is growing rapidly.

Current Technical Environment:

  • On-premises data centers in US and EU.
  • 200 bare-metal servers running Linux.
  • Self-managed MySQL databases (5 TB total) for player profiles and inventory.
  • Peak concurrent users: 2 million.
  • Current monthly infrastructure cost: $150K.

Business Requirements:

  • Reduce infrastructure costs by 40%.
  • Support 5x user growth over 2 years.
  • Launch in 3 new regions (APAC, SA, Africa).
  • Improve deployment speed from 1 week to daily.

Executive Statements:

  • CEO: "We need to scale rapidly to compete. Cloud migration is critical."
  • CFO: "Cost reduction is paramount. We cannot exceed $100K/month. ROI must be achieved in 18 months."
  • CTO: "Our team has limited cloud experience. Reliability is non-negotiable - 99.95% uptime minimum."

Technical Requirements:

  • Sub-100ms latency for players globally.
  • Real-time analytics on player behavior.
  • Seasonal traffic spikes (5x during holidays).
  • CI/CD pipeline for daily deployments.

Constraints:

  • Migration must complete in 12 months.
  • Cannot exceed 4-hour downtime during cutover.
  • Dev team: 20 engineers (Java, MySQL).
  • Ops team: 5 engineers (limited cloud experience).

QUESTION:
Which database migration strategy should you recommend to meet the global scalability and latency requirements while minimizing operational overhead for the ops team?

GCP PCA · Question 04 · Cost Optimization

CASE STUDY: TechStream Gaming

Company Overview:
TechStream Gaming is a global multiplayer game developer with 500 employees and $100M annual revenue. They recently launched a hit mobile game that is growing rapidly.

Current Technical Environment:

  • On-premises data centers in US and EU.
  • 200 bare-metal servers running Linux.
  • Self-managed MySQL databases (5 TB total) for player profiles and inventory.
  • Peak concurrent users: 2 million.
  • Current monthly infrastructure cost: $150K.

Business Requirements:

  • Reduce infrastructure costs by 40%.
  • Support 5x user growth over 2 years.
  • Launch in 3 new regions (APAC, SA, Africa).
  • Improve deployment speed from 1 week to daily.

Executive Statements:

  • CEO: "We need to scale rapidly to compete. Cloud migration is critical."
  • CFO: "Cost reduction is paramount. We cannot exceed $100K/month. ROI must be achieved in 18 months."
  • CTO: "Our team has limited cloud experience. Reliability is non-negotiable - 99.95% uptime minimum."

Technical Requirements:

  • Sub-100ms latency for players globally.
  • Real-time analytics on player behavior.
  • Seasonal traffic spikes (5x during holidays).
  • CI/CD pipeline for daily deployments.

Constraints:

  • Migration must complete in 12 months.
  • Cannot exceed 4-hour downtime during cutover.
  • Dev team: 20 engineers (Java, MySQL).
  • Ops team: 5 engineers (limited cloud experience).

QUESTION:
To meet the CFO's cost reduction requirements, which pricing strategy should you implement for the game server compute resources?

Answer options:

A.

Run all game servers on Spot VMs to maximize cost savings.

B.

Purchase 3-year Committed Use Discounts (CUDs) for the baseline load and use on-demand pricing for seasonal spikes.

C.

Use Sustained Use Discounts (SUDs) exclusively, as they automatically apply to all running instances.

D.

Purchase 1-year Committed Use Discounts for the peak holiday load to ensure capacity is always available.

How to approach this question

Identify the predictable baseline vs. unpredictable/seasonal spikes. Apply CUDs to the baseline and on-demand to the spikes.

Full Answer

B.Purchase 3-year Committed Use Discounts (CUDs) for the baseline load and use on-demand pricing for seasonal spikes.✓ Correct
Purchase 3-year Committed Use Discounts (CUDs) for the baseline load and use on-demand pricing for seasonal spikes.
Committed Use Discounts (CUDs) are ideal for workloads with predictable resource needs, offering deep discounts in exchange for a 1- or 3-year commitment. By covering the baseline load with CUDs and handling the seasonal 5x spikes with on-demand instances, TechStream achieves maximum cost efficiency without paying for idle peak capacity.

Common mistakes

Choosing Spot VMs (Option A) is a common mistake when focusing solely on cost, but it ignores the business requirement for high reliability and uninterrupted gameplay.

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