Google Exam Associate Data Practitioner Topic 2 Question 12 Discussion

Storing the data in a multi-region bucket ensures high availability and durability, even in the event of a single-zone outage. Multi-region buckets replicate data across multiple locations within the selected region, providing resilience against zone-level failures and ensuring that the data remains accessible. This approach is particularly suitable for sensitive customer data that must remain available without interruptions.

A single-zone outage requires high availability across zones or regions. Cloud Storage offers location-based redundancy options:

Option A: Cloud CDN caches content for web delivery but doesn't protect against underlying storage outages---it's for performance, not availability of the source data.

Option B: Object Versioning retains old versions of objects, protecting against overwrites or deletions, but doesn't ensure availability during a zone failure (still tied to one location).

Option C: Multi-region buckets (e.g., us or eu) replicate data across multiple regions, ensuring accessibility even if a single zone or region fails. This provides the highest availability for sensitive data in a pipeline.

Option D: Nearline storage is a low-cost class with lower availability (single-region by default), not designed for outage resilience. Why C is Best: Multi-region storage offers geo-redundancy, guaranteeing data access during outages with no additional configuration. It's the simplest, most reliable choice for pipeline continuity. Extract from Google Documentation: From 'Cloud Storage Bucket Locations' (https://cloud.google.com/storage/docs/locations): 'Multi-region buckets replicate data across multiple regions within a geography, providing high availability and durability, ensuring access even if a single zone or region experiences an outage.' Reference: Google Cloud Documentation - 'Cloud Storage Locations' (https://cloud.google.com/storage/docs/locations).