GCP Professional Cloud Architect Practice Question

An online retailer runs a monolithic Java web application and a 2-TB MySQL database on-prem. During flash-sale events, traffic can surge 10× for a few minutes, while normal load is low. The business wants to migrate to Google Cloud to reduce idle costs, automatically scale for peaks, and minimize operations. Orders must remain strongly consistent worldwide, and the platform must survive a regional outage with at most 1-hour downtime and 15-minute data loss. Which target architecture best meets these requirements and aligns with business goals?

Containerize the application and deploy it on Cloud Run behind an external HTTP(S) load balancer with Cloud CDN; store transactional data in a multi-region Cloud Spanner instance for strong global consistency; keep product images in a dual-region Cloud Storage bucket with lifecycle rules to Nearline; allow Cloud Run to scale to zero when idle.
Refactor the application into Cloud Functions invoked via HTTP, store orders in Firestore in Datastore mode across multiple regions, archive product images in the Cloud Storage Archive class, and rely on Cloud DNS for low-latency delivery.
Lift and shift the VM into a regional managed instance group with autoscaling, replicate a self-managed MySQL database on Compute Engine to another zone using asynchronous replication, store images on regional Persistent Disks, and serve them through Cloud CDN backed by Cloud Storage.
Move the application to a GKE Autopilot cluster with horizontal pod autoscaling, use a Cloud SQL HA primary and cross-region read replica for orders, store product images on Filestore, and front the site with Cloud CDN.

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Answer Description

Cloud Run is a fully managed container platform that can scale from zero instances to thousands within seconds, eliminating idle-time costs and operational overhead. Deploying it behind an external HTTP(S) Load Balancer with Cloud CDN puts content close to users worldwide. Cloud Spanner's multi-region configuration offers global strong consistency with an RPO of 0 and RTO under a minute, comfortably satisfying the 15-minute RPO and 1-hour RTO objectives while supporting global order consistency. A dual-region Cloud Storage bucket automatically keeps two geographically separate replicas and, together with lifecycle rules that transition older objects to Nearline, provides cost-effective, highly available storage for product images. The alternative designs either cannot scale to zero (GKE/Compute Engine), require more operational management, do not guarantee global strong consistency (Cloud SQL, self-managed MySQL, or Firestore in Datastore mode), or place frequently accessed images in inappropriate storage classes, so they fail to meet one or more stated business or technical requirements.

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