Minimize Cost and Latency: Best Architecture for Storing and Serving Images | PCD Exam Answer

Minimizing Cost and Latency: Choosing the Right Architecture for Image Storage and Serving

Question

You are building a new API.

You want to minimize the cost of storing and reduce the latency of serving images.

Which architecture should you use?

Answers

Explanations

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A. B. C. D.

B.

Option D, Cloud Content Delivery Network (CDN) backed by Cloud Storage, is the best architecture for minimizing storage cost and reducing image serving latency.

Cloud CDN is a global network of edge servers that cache content from your website or API. When a user requests content, the CDN serves it from the edge server closest to the user, reducing latency and improving performance. Cloud CDN is tightly integrated with Cloud Storage, so you can use it to serve content stored in Cloud Storage buckets.

Cloud Storage is a low-cost, highly scalable object storage service that allows you to store and serve static assets such as images, videos, and documents. With Cloud Storage, you pay only for the storage you use, with no minimum fees or upfront costs.

By using Cloud CDN backed by Cloud Storage, you can store your images in a Cloud Storage bucket and serve them to users from the closest edge server, minimizing latency and reducing the load on your API server. This architecture is also cost-effective, as you only pay for the storage and data transfer you use, with no additional charges for using Cloud CDN.

Option A, App Engine backed by Cloud Storage, is another viable architecture. App Engine is a fully managed platform for building and deploying web applications and APIs. With App Engine, you can deploy your API code to Google's infrastructure, and Google will automatically manage the underlying resources and scaling. By using Cloud Storage to store your images, you can take advantage of App Engine's built-in support for serving static assets from Cloud Storage buckets.

Option B, Compute Engine backed by Persistent Disk, is less optimal for this use case. Compute Engine is a virtual machine service that allows you to run your own code on Google's infrastructure. While Compute Engine provides more control over the underlying infrastructure, it also requires more management and maintenance. Additionally, using Compute Engine to serve static assets can result in higher latency and increased costs.

Option C, Transfer Appliance backed by Cloud Filestore, is not a good fit for this use case. Transfer Appliance is a hardware device that you can use to transfer large amounts of data to Google Cloud. Cloud Filestore is a managed file storage service that is designed for high-performance applications that require low latency and high throughput. However, using Cloud Filestore to serve static assets is not a cost-effective solution, as it is designed for high-performance applications that require low latency and high throughput.