Google Cloud Professional Cloud Database Engineer — Question 30

Your customer is running a MySQL database on-premises with read replicas. The nightly incremental backups are expensive and add maintenance overhead. You want to follow Google-recommended practices to migrate the database to Google Cloud, and you need to ensure minimal downtime. What should you do?

Answer options

• A. Create a Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE) cluster, install MySQL on the cluster, and then import the dump file.
• B. Use the mysqldump utility to take a backup of the existing on-premises database, and then import it into Cloud SQL.
• C. Create a Compute Engine VM, install MySQL on the VM, and then import the dump file.
• D. Create an external replica, and use Cloud SQL to synchronize the data to the replica.

Correct answer: D

Explanation

The correct answer is D because creating an external replica allows for real-time data synchronization with minimal downtime during the migration process. Options A and C involve creating new installations that require more downtime and do not utilize Google Cloud's capabilities effectively. Option B, while a valid backup method, would still lead to more downtime compared to leveraging Cloud SQL's replication features.