google-cloud-platformgoogle-cloud-sqlgoogle-cloud-memorystore

Is GCP Cloud SQL a Regional or Zonal resource?


I am struggling a little to understand the concept of Regional or Zonal resource in GCP for some specific services. If I am not wrong when you create a Cloud SQL instance, you have to select an specific Zone (This means that Cloud SQL is Zonal right?) but also I understand that you can select high availability and select a secondary zone. If I have a failover zone for my Cloud SQL instance, this means that the resource it self is considered as a Regional resource instead of zonal resource?.

I have the same question for Memory Store Redis instances. When you create a redis instance you have to select an specific Zone, but I have seen some people in some forums saying that Redis is a regional resource. If I have to select an specific Zone for Redis why is this a Regional resource? Is a regional resource due to the high availability option?. https://cloud.google.com/memorystore/docs/redis/high-availability#what_high_availability_provides

I ask this because I want to take the Associate Cloud Engineer test, so If I see a question like the previous ones I would not know what to answer in those cases. For example, I would not know whether to choose Cloud SQL as a regional or zonal solution for certain types of architectures.

Thanks in advance!



Solution

  • There are two factors to consider:

    1. The Cloud SQL Service instance location
    2. The data storage location

    Google Cloud SQL service instance is zonal. You select the Region and zone when creating an instance. You can configure replication and read-replicas to other zones, but a failure of the master within a zone takes down Cloud SQL until the slave is promoted to master. If a zone fails, then Cloud SQL can failover to another zone, but that does not make Cloud SQL a regional service.

    The data storage is regional or multi-regional.

    Since your question is related to an exam, the correct answer depends on the exam writer's opinion of Zonal versus Regional resources. IMHO, many exam writers get this detail wrong.