Google Cloud Platform (GCP) Interview Questions and Answers

1. What is Google Cloud Platform (GCP)?

   • Answer: Google Cloud Platform (GCP) is a suite of cloud computing services offered by Google. It provides a wide range of tools and services including compute, storage, databases, networking, analytics, machine learning, and more, allowing businesses and individuals to build, deploy, and manage applications and services on Google's infrastructure.

2. What are the key advantages of using GCP?

   • Answer: Key advantages include scalability, reliability, global reach, cost-effectiveness (pay-as-you-go model), advanced analytics capabilities, strong security features, and integration with other Google services.

3. Explain Compute Engine.

   • Answer: Compute Engine is GCP's infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) offering, providing virtual machines (VMs) for running applications. You can choose from various machine types, operating systems, and customize the resources based on your needs.

4. What are different machine types available in Compute Engine?

   • Answer: Compute Engine offers a wide variety of machine types, including general-purpose, compute-optimized, memory-optimized, and custom machine types, each designed for specific workloads.

5. Describe App Engine.

   • Answer: App Engine is a Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) offering that allows you to deploy and scale web applications and APIs without managing servers. It handles the infrastructure, allowing you to focus on your code.

6. What is Kubernetes Engine (GKE)?

   • Answer: Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE) is a managed Kubernetes service that simplifies the deployment, scaling, and management of containerized applications. It handles the complexities of Kubernetes, allowing you to focus on your application.

7. Explain Cloud Storage.

   • Answer: Cloud Storage is GCP's object storage service, offering highly scalable and durable storage for unstructured data like images, videos, and backups. It's designed for various access patterns and storage classes.

8. What are different storage classes in Cloud Storage?

   • Answer: Cloud Storage offers various storage classes like Standard, Nearline, Coldline, and Archive, each with different access speeds and pricing, optimized for different data access patterns.

9. Describe Cloud SQL.

   • Answer: Cloud SQL is a fully managed database service that makes it easy to set up, manage, and maintain relational databases like MySQL, PostgreSQL, and SQL Server in the cloud.

10. Explain Cloud Spanner.

    • Answer: Cloud Spanner is a globally-distributed, scalable, and strongly consistent database service. It's designed for applications requiring high availability and low latency across multiple regions.

11. What is Cloud Dataflow?

    • Answer: Cloud Dataflow is a fully managed, serverless, unified stream and batch data processing service. It uses Apache Beam to process large datasets.

12. Explain Cloud Dataproc.

    • Answer: Cloud Dataproc is a fully managed Hadoop and Spark service that simplifies the process of running big data analytics workloads on GCP.

13. What is Cloud Bigtable?

    • Answer: Cloud Bigtable is a fully managed, scalable NoSQL database service built on Google's database technology. It's ideal for large-scale, low-latency applications.

14. Describe Cloud Pub/Sub.

    • Answer: Cloud Pub/Sub is a fully managed real-time messaging service that allows applications to send and receive messages asynchronously. It's often used for microservices communication and event-driven architectures.

15. Explain Cloud Functions.

    • Answer: Cloud Functions is a serverless compute platform that allows you to run code in response to events without managing servers. It's ideal for event-driven architectures and microservices.

16. What is Cloud Run?

    • Answer: Cloud Run is a serverless platform for running containerized applications. It scales automatically based on demand and only charges for the resources consumed.

17. Describe Cloud Logging.

    • Answer: Cloud Logging is a fully managed logging service that collects and stores logs from various GCP services and applications, allowing you to monitor and troubleshoot your systems.

18. Explain Cloud Monitoring.

    • Answer: Cloud Monitoring is a fully managed monitoring service that collects and analyzes metrics and logs from your GCP resources and applications, providing insights into performance and availability.

19. What is Cloud DNS?

    • Answer: Cloud DNS is a highly available and scalable Domain Name System (DNS) service that allows you to manage your domain names and DNS records on GCP.

20. Explain Cloud CDN.

    • Answer: Cloud CDN (Content Delivery Network) is a globally distributed network of servers that caches your content closer to your users, improving website performance and reducing latency.

21. What is Virtual Private Cloud (VPC)?

    • Answer: Virtual Private Cloud (VPC) Network in GCP provides a logically isolated section of the GCP network, allowing you to create a private network for your resources.

22. Explain Cloud Load Balancing.

    • Answer: Cloud Load Balancing distributes incoming network traffic across multiple instances of your application, ensuring high availability and scalability.

23. What is a Firewall in GCP?

    • Answer: A Firewall in GCP is a security feature that controls network traffic to and from your virtual machines and other resources within your VPC network.

24. Describe Cloud Armor.

    • Answer: Cloud Armor is a DDoS protection service that protects your web applications and backend services from distributed denial-of-service attacks.

25. What is Cloud Key Management Service (KMS)?

    • Answer: Cloud KMS is a fully managed key management service that helps you protect your encryption keys and manage their lifecycle.

26. Explain Cloud Identity and Access Management (IAM).

    • Answer: Cloud IAM is a granular access control system that allows you to manage permissions and access to your GCP resources, enhancing security.

27. What are different IAM roles?

    • Answer: IAM offers various predefined roles (like Owner, Editor, Viewer) and custom roles, granting specific permissions to users and service accounts.

28. Describe Cloud SQL Proxy.

    • Answer: Cloud SQL Proxy is a tool that allows you to connect to your Cloud SQL instances securely from your local machine without exposing them publicly.

29. Explain Cloud Build.

    • Answer: Cloud Build is a service for building, testing, and deploying software, enabling continuous integration and continuous delivery (CI/CD) pipelines.

30. What is Cloud Deployment Manager?

    • Answer: Cloud Deployment Manager is a service that allows you to manage and automate the deployment of your infrastructure as code, promoting consistency and repeatability.

31. Describe Cloud Composer.

    • Answer: Cloud Composer is a fully managed Apache Airflow service that simplifies the creation and management of complex data pipelines and workflows.

32. Explain Cloud Dataprep.

    • Answer: Cloud Dataprep is a visual data preparation tool that allows you to clean, transform, and prepare your data for analysis without writing code.

33. What is Cloud Natural Language API?

    • Answer: Cloud Natural Language API is a machine learning API that provides natural language understanding capabilities, allowing you to analyze text for sentiment, entities, syntax, and more.

34. Describe Cloud Vision API.

    • Answer: Cloud Vision API is a machine learning API that allows you to analyze images for objects, faces, labels, and other features.

35. Explain Cloud Speech-to-Text API.

    • Answer: Cloud Speech-to-Text API converts audio into text using machine learning, enabling applications that transcribe speech.

36. What is Cloud Text-to-Speech API?

    • Answer: Cloud Text-to-Speech API converts text into natural-sounding speech, useful for applications that need to synthesize voice.

37. Describe Cloud Translation API.

    • Answer: Cloud Translation API translates text between multiple languages using machine learning, making applications multilingual.

38. Explain Cloud AutoML.

    • Answer: Cloud AutoML allows you to train custom machine learning models with your own data, even without extensive machine learning expertise.

39. What is Cloud AI Platform?

    • Answer: Cloud AI Platform is a suite of services for building, deploying, and managing machine learning models at scale.

40. Describe Vertex AI.

    • Answer: Vertex AI is a unified machine learning platform that simplifies the entire machine learning workflow, from data preparation to model deployment.

41. Explain Transfer Learning in Cloud AI Platform.

    • Answer: Transfer learning leverages pre-trained models to accelerate the training process and improve model accuracy, especially with limited data.

42. What is a Service Account in GCP?

    • Answer: A service account is a special type of account used by applications to access GCP resources without requiring a human user to authenticate.

43. Explain the concept of Zones and Regions in GCP.

    • Answer: Regions are geographic locations, and zones are smaller independent data centers within a region. Distributing resources across zones and regions enhances availability and fault tolerance.

44. What is a Project in GCP?

    • Answer: A project is a container for all your GCP resources, such as VMs, databases, and storage buckets. It's used for billing and resource management.

45. Explain the concept of Resource Hierarchy in GCP.

    • Answer: The resource hierarchy organizes GCP resources in a nested structure (Organization > Folder > Project), allowing for centralized management and policy enforcement.

46. What are Folders in GCP?

    • Answer: Folders provide an intermediate level in the resource hierarchy, allowing you to group projects and apply policies at a higher level than individual projects.

47. Explain Organizations in GCP.

    • Answer: Organizations are the top level of the resource hierarchy, providing centralized billing, policy management, and IAM control for multiple projects and folders.

48. Describe Google Cloud Resource Manager.

    • Answer: Google Cloud Resource Manager is the service that manages the resource hierarchy (Organizations, Folders, Projects) and provides tools for centralized management.

49. What are different types of networking in GCP?

    • Answer: GCP offers various networking options, including Virtual Private Cloud (VPC), Cloud VPN, Cloud Interconnect, and Cloud DNS, each designed for specific network requirements.

50. Explain Cloud VPN.

    • Answer: Cloud VPN creates a secure connection between your on-premises network and your GCP VPC, allowing you to extend your network to the cloud securely.

51. Describe Cloud Interconnect.

    • Answer: Cloud Interconnect provides a dedicated high-bandwidth connection between your on-premises network and GCP, offering higher performance than Cloud VPN.

52. What is a Persistent Disk in Compute Engine?

    • Answer: A Persistent Disk is a block storage device that persists even if the VM instance is deleted, allowing you to store data persistently.

53. Explain different types of Persistent Disks.

    • Answer: Persistent disks come in various types, like Standard, SSD, and regional SSD, offering different performance and pricing characteristics.

54. What are snapshots in GCP?

    • Answer: Snapshots are point-in-time copies of your persistent disks, useful for backups and disaster recovery.

55. Explain the concept of instance templates in Compute Engine.

    • Answer: Instance templates are blueprints for creating VM instances with predefined configurations, simplifying the process of creating multiple identical VMs.

56. Describe managed instance groups in Compute Engine.

    • Answer: Managed instance groups automate the creation, management, and scaling of VM instances based on predefined configurations and autoscaling policies.

57. What is autoscaling in Compute Engine?

    • Answer: Autoscaling automatically adjusts the number of running VM instances based on demand, ensuring optimal performance and cost-efficiency.

58. Explain the concept of preemptible VMs in Compute Engine.

    • Answer: Preemptible VMs are lower-cost VMs that can be reclaimed by Google at any time. They are suitable for fault-tolerant applications that can handle interruptions.

59. Describe Cloud Scheduler.

    • Answer: Cloud Scheduler is a fully managed service for scheduling recurring tasks, like running scripts or invoking Cloud Functions at specified times or intervals.

60. Explain Cloud Monitoring Alerting.

    • Answer: Cloud Monitoring Alerting allows you to set up alerts based on specific metrics or conditions, notifying you when issues arise in your applications or infrastructure.

61. What is Cloud Trace?

    • Answer: Cloud Trace helps you diagnose latency issues in your applications by tracing requests across multiple services and identifying bottlenecks.

62. Explain Cloud Debugger.

    • Answer: Cloud Debugger allows you to debug your applications in production without restarting them, facilitating faster troubleshooting.

63. What is Cloud Profiler?

    • Answer: Cloud Profiler helps you identify performance bottlenecks in your applications by profiling CPU and memory usage.

64. Describe Cloud Deployment Manager's YAML configuration.

    • Answer: Cloud Deployment Manager uses YAML files to define the infrastructure to be deployed, allowing for declarative infrastructure management.

65. Explain how to create a simple VM instance using the gcloud command-line tool.

    • Answer: The command would generally follow the structure: `gcloud compute instances create [instance-name] --zone=[zone] --machine-type=[machine-type] --image=[image-family]`. Specific flags would depend on the desired configuration.

66. How do you manage billing in GCP?

    • Answer: Billing is managed through the GCP Console, where you can view usage, set budgets, and manage billing accounts and projects.

67. Explain the different pricing models available in GCP.

    • Answer: GCP offers various pricing models including pay-as-you-go, sustained use discounts, committed use discounts, and free tier for certain services.

68. How do you ensure the security of your GCP resources?

    • Answer: Security is ensured through a multi-layered approach: IAM for access control, firewalls for network security, encryption for data protection, regular security audits, and following security best practices.

69. What are some best practices for cost optimization in GCP?

    • Answer: Best practices include using right-sized VMs, leveraging sustained use discounts, utilizing preemptible VMs where appropriate, regularly monitoring usage, and deleting unused resources.

70. How can you monitor the performance of your GCP applications?

    • Answer: Performance monitoring is done using Cloud Monitoring, Cloud Logging, Cloud Trace, Cloud Profiler, and custom dashboards to visualize key performance indicators (KPIs).

71. Explain how to deploy a simple web application to App Engine.

    • Answer: This involves creating an App Engine application, deploying the application code (usually using the `gcloud app deploy` command), and configuring the application's settings (like scaling and handlers).

72. What are some common GCP use cases?

    • Answer: Common use cases include hosting websites and web applications, running big data analytics, deploying machine learning models, building microservices architectures, and storing and processing large amounts of data.

73. Describe the process of migrating an existing application to GCP.

    • Answer: Migration involves assessing the application, choosing appropriate GCP services, migrating the data, deploying the application, and testing thoroughly.

74. Explain how to use Cloud SDK to interact with GCP.

    • Answer: The Google Cloud SDK (gcloud) provides command-line tools for managing and interacting with GCP resources. You can install it and use various commands for creating, managing, and deleting resources.

75. What are the different ways to authenticate with GCP?

    • Answer: Authentication methods include using the gcloud command-line tool with authentication, using service accounts, and using various APIs with appropriate credentials.

76. Describe the different deployment strategies for applications on GCP.

    • Answer: Deployment strategies include blue/green deployments, canary deployments, rolling deployments, and A/B testing, each offering different trade-offs for minimizing downtime and risk.

77. How do you handle data backups and disaster recovery in GCP?

    • Answer: Data backups are managed using snapshots for persistent disks, regular backups of databases, and utilizing other services such as Cloud Storage for backups and replication across regions for disaster recovery.

78. Explain the concept of regional and zonal resources in GCP.

    • Answer: Regional resources are replicated across multiple zones in a region, offering high availability. Zonal resources reside in a single zone, typically providing lower cost but potentially less availability.

79. How do you troubleshoot common GCP issues?

    • Answer: Troubleshooting involves using Cloud Logging, Cloud Monitoring, Cloud Trace, and other diagnostic tools to analyze logs, metrics, and traces to pinpoint the root cause of problems.

80. What are some common security best practices for deploying applications on GCP?

    • Answer: These include using least privilege access control, securing networks with firewalls, encrypting data both in transit and at rest, implementing regular security scans, and staying up-to-date with security patches.

81. Explain how to use Cloud Functions to handle events.

    • Answer: Cloud Functions can be triggered by various events like changes in Cloud Storage, messages in Pub/Sub, and HTTP requests. You define a function that executes in response to the event.

82. Describe the process of creating and managing a Kubernetes cluster in GKE.

    • Answer: This involves creating a GKE cluster using the `gcloud` command-line tool or the GCP Console, configuring node pools, and managing the cluster's lifecycle using kubectl.

83. What are some of the key differences between Compute Engine and App Engine?

    • Answer: Compute Engine is IaaS (you manage the OS and everything else), while App Engine is PaaS (Google manages the servers). App Engine is easier to use for simpler apps, while Compute Engine offers more control for complex applications.

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