Google Cloud Platform GCP Interview Questions and Answers

Q1. What is Google Cloud Platform?

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Google Cloud Platform is a cloud-based platform administered by Google. This is a suite of virtual machines, computing, networking, storage, big data, database and management services, machine learning, and much more. All of these services operate on the same Google infrastructure, which is used by Google for its end-user products such as Google Search, Gmail, and YouTube.

Q2. List some benefits of using the Google cloud platform.

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• GCP delivers competitive pricing.
• Google Cloud servers make it possible to access information from everywhere.
• GCP delivers performance and services that are generally better than other cloud hosting services.
• Google Cloud delivers quick and effective updates for servers and security.
• The Google Cloud Platform's security level is exemplary; the cloud networks and platforms are secure and encrypted using different security measures.

Q3. What is Google Cloud Platform features?

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Object storage that's secure, durable, and scalable. Command-line tools and libraries for Google Cloud. Relational database services for MySQL, PostgreSQL, and SQL Server. Managed environment for running containerized apps. Data warehouse for business agility and insights.

Q4. What is difference between AWS and GCP?

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Q5. Describe the security aspects that the cloud offers?

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• Access control: it offers control to the users who can control the access to other users who are entering the cloud ecosystem
• Identity management: this provides the authorization for the application services
• Authorization and authentication: this security feature lets only the authenticated and authorized users access the applications and data.

Q6. What are system integrators in Cloud Computing?

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The cloud can consist of multiple components that can be complex. The system integrator in the cloud is the strategy that provides the process of designing the cloud, integrating the various components for creating a hybrid or a private cloud network among other things.

Q7. What are the various components of the Google Cloud Platform?

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• Google Compute Engine
• Google Cloud Container Engine
• Google Cloud Storage
• Google Cloud App Engine
• Google Cloud Dataflow
• Google Cloud Machine Learning Engine
• Google BigQuery Service
• Google Cloud Job Discovery
• Google Cloud Endpoints
• Google Cloud Test Lab

Q8. What are the main advantages of using Google Cloud Platform?

Ans

• GCP offers competitive pricing 
• Google Cloud servers allow access to information from anywhere 
• GCP has an overall better performance and service compared to other hosting cloud services
• Google Cloud provides speedy and efficient server and security updates
• The security level of Google Cloud Platform is exemplary; the cloud platform and networks are secured and encrypted with various security measures.

Q9. What are the various layers in the cloud architecture?

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• Physical layer: This constitutes the physical servers, network, and other aspects
• Infrastructure layer: This layer includes storage, virtualized layers, and so on
• Platform layer: This includes the operating system, apps, and other aspects
• Application layer: This is the layer that the end-user directly interacts with.

Q10. What are the libraries and tools for cloud storage on GCP?

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JSON API and XML API are at the core level for the cloud storage on Google Cloud Platform. But along with these, Google also provides the following to interact with the cloud storage.

• Google Cloud Platform Console to perform basic operations on objects and buckets
• Cloud Storage Client Libraries that provides programming support for various languages 
• Gsutil Command-line Tool provides a CLI for the cloud storage

Q11. What is “EUCALYPTUS” in the context of cloud computing?

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“EUCALYPTUS” stands for “Elastic Utility Computing Architecture for Linking Your Programs To Useful Systems”, which is an open-source cloud computing infrastructure that is used for deploying cloud clusters. Using the “EUCALYPTUS”, you can build public, private, and hybrid cloud platforms. You can even have your own data center in the cloud and this can be used to harness its functionality in your organization.

Q12. What is Google Compute Engine?

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Google Cloud Engine is the basic component of the Google Cloud Platform. It is an IaaS that provides flexible Windows and Linux-based virtual machines that are self-managed and hosted on the Google infrastructure. The virtual machines can run on local, durable storage options, and KVM.

For the purpose of control and configuration, Google Cloud Engine also includes REST-based API. It integrates with other GCP technologies (Google Cloud Storage, Google App Engine, Google BigQuery, etc.) that help extend its computational ability thus creating more complex and sophisticated applications.

Q13. What are the different methods for the authentication of Google Compute Engine API?

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• Through client library
• Using OAuth 2.0
• Directly using an access token

Q14. What are some of the popular open-source cloud computing platforms?

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• OpenStack
• Cloud Foundry
• Docker
• Apache Mesos
• KVM

Q15. Explain what are the different modes of software as a service (SaaS)?

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• Single multi-tenancy: In this type of SaaS you have your own independent resources that you don’t share with anybody
• Fine grain multi-tenancy: In this type of SaaS deployment the resources are shared between multiple tenants even though the functionalities remain the same.

Q16. What is the benefit of API in the cloud domain?

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• You don’t have to write the complete program
• You can easily communicate between one application and another
• You can easily create applications and link them to the cloud services
• It seamlessly connects two applications in a secure manner.

Q17. Mention what is the difference between elasticity and scalability in cloud computing?

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Scalability in the cloud is the way in which you increase the ability to service additional workloads either by adding new servers or accommodating them within the existing servers. Elasticity is the process by which you can either add or remove virtual machines depending on the requirement in order to avoid wastage of resources and reduce costs.

Q18. What are the service accounts?

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Service accounts are the special accounts related to a project. They are used for the authorization of Google Compute Engine in order to be able to perform on behalf of the user thus receiving access to non-sensitive data.

There are different service accounts offered by Google but mainly, users prefer to use Google Cloud Platform Console and Google Compute Engine service accounts.

The user doesn’t need to create a service account manually. It is automatically created by the Compute Engine whenever a new instance is created. Google Compute Engine also specifies the scope of the service account for that particular instance when it is created.

Q19. What is Google BigQuery? What are the benefits of BigQuery for data warehouse practitioners?

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Google BigQuery is used as a data warehouse and stores all the analytical data in an organization. It organizes the data table into datasets.

Some of the benefits of BigQuery for the data warehouse practitioners are:

• BigQuery allocates query and storage resources depending on the requirement and usage. Therefore, it doesn’t require the provisioning of resources before usage.
• It can store data in different formats for efficient storage management. For example, Google’s distributed file system, proprietary format, proprietary columnar format, query access pattern, etc.
• It is fully maintained and managed without any downtime or hindrance.
• It provides backup and disaster recovery at a broader level. Users can easily undo changes and revert to a previous state without making a request for the backup recovery.

Q20. What do you know about Google Cloud SDK?

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Google Cloud SDK (Software Development Kit) is a set of tools that are used in the management of applications and resources that are hosted on the Google Cloud Platform. It is comprised of the gcloud, gsutil, and bqcommand line tools.
Google Cloud SDK runs only on specific platforms like Windows, Linux, and macOS and requires Python 2.7.x. Other specific tools in the kit may have additional requirements as well.