Google Google Cloud Architect Professional Exam (page: 3)
Google Cloud Certified - Professional Cloud Architect
Updated on: 12-Jan-2026

Company Overview
Mountkirk Games makes online, session-based, multiplayer games for mobile platforms. They build all of their games using some server-side integration. Historically, they have used cloud providers to lease physical servers.
Due to the unexpected popularity of some of their games, they have had problems scaling their global audience, application servers, MySQL databases, and analytics tools.
Their current model is to write game statistics to files and send them through an ETL tool that loads them into a centralized MySQL database for reporting.
Solution Concept
Mountkirk Games is building a new game, which they expect to be very popular. They plan to deploy the game's backend on Google Compute Engine so they can capture streaming metrics, run intensive analytics, and take advantage of its autoscaling server environment and integrate with a managed NoSQL database.
Business Requirements
Increase to a global footprint

Improve uptime ­ downtime is loss of players

Increase efficiency of the cloud resources we use

Reduce latency to all customers

Technical Requirements
Requirements for Game Backend Platform
Dynamically scale up or down based on game activity

Connect to a transactional database service to manage user profiles and game state

Store game activity in a timeseries database service for future analysis

As the system scales, ensure that data is not lost due to processing backlogs

Run hardened Linux distro

Requirements for Game Analytics Platform
Dynamically scale up or down based on game activity

Process incoming data on the fly directly from the game servers

Process data that arrives late because of slow mobile networks

Allow queries to access at least 10 TB of historical data

Process files that are regularly uploaded by users' mobile devices

Executive Statement
Our last successful game did not scale well with our previous cloud provider, resulting in lower user adoption and affecting the game's reputation. Our investors want more key performance indicators (KPIs) to evaluate the speed and stability of the game, as well as other metrics that provide deeper insight into usage patterns so we can adapt the game to target users. Additionally, our current technology stack cannot provide the scale we need, so we want to replace MySQL and move to an environment that provides autoscaling, low latency load balancing, and frees us up from managing physical servers.
Hide Case Study

Company Overview
Mountkirk Games makes online, session-based, multiplayer games for mobile platforms. They build all of their games using some server-side integration. Historically, they have used cloud providers to lease physical servers.
Due to the unexpected popularity of some of their games, they have had problems scaling their global audience, application servers, MySQL databases, and analytics tools.
Their current model is to write game statistics to files and send them through an ETL tool that loads them into a centralized MySQL database for reporting.
Solution Concept
Mountkirk Games is building a new game, which they expect to be very popular. They plan to deploy the game's backend on Google Compute Engine so they can capture streaming metrics, run intensive analytics, and take advantage of its autoscaling server environment and integrate with a managed NoSQL database.
Business Requirements
Increase to a global footprint

Improve uptime ­ downtime is loss of players

Increase efficiency of the cloud resources we use

Reduce latency to all customers

Technical Requirements
Requirements for Game Backend Platform
Dynamically scale up or down based on game activity

Connect to a transactional database service to manage user profiles and game state

Store game activity in a timeseries database service for future analysis

As the system scales, ensure that data is not lost due to processing backlogs

Run hardened Linux distro

Requirements for Game Analytics Platform
Dynamically scale up or down based on game activity

Process incoming data on the fly directly from the game servers

Process data that arrives late because of slow mobile networks

Allow queries to access at least 10 TB of historical data

Process files that are regularly uploaded by users' mobile devices

Executive Statement
Our last successful game did not scale well with our previous cloud provider, resulting in lower user adoption and affecting the game's reputation. Our investors want more key performance indicators (KPIs) to evaluate the speed and stability of the game, as well as other metrics that provide deeper insight into usage patterns so we can adapt the game to target users. Additionally, our current technology stack cannot provide the scale we need, so we want to replace MySQL and move to an environment that provides autoscaling, low latency load balancing, and frees us up from managing physical servers.
Hide Case Study

Company Overview
Mountkirk Games makes online, session-based, multiplayer games for mobile platforms. They build all of their games using some server-side integration. Historically, they have used cloud providers to lease physical servers.
Due to the unexpected popularity of some of their games, they have had problems scaling their global audience, application servers, MySQL databases, and analytics tools.
Their current model is to write game statistics to files and send them through an ETL tool that loads them into a centralized MySQL database for reporting.
Solution Concept
Mountkirk Games is building a new game, which they expect to be very popular. They plan to deploy the game's backend on Google Compute Engine so they can capture streaming metrics, run intensive analytics, and take advantage of its autoscaling server environment and integrate with a managed NoSQL database.
Business Requirements
Increase to a global footprint

Improve uptime ­ downtime is loss of players

Increase efficiency of the cloud resources we use

Reduce latency to all customers

Technical Requirements
Requirements for Game Backend Platform
Dynamically scale up or down based on game activity

Connect to a transactional database service to manage user profiles and game state

Store game activity in a timeseries database service for future analysis

As the system scales, ensure that data is not lost due to processing backlogs

Run hardened Linux distro

Requirements for Game Analytics Platform
Dynamically scale up or down based on game activity

Process incoming data on the fly directly from the game servers

Process data that arrives late because of slow mobile networks

Allow queries to access at least 10 TB of historical data

Process files that are regularly uploaded by users' mobile devices

Executive Statement
Our last successful game did not scale well with our previous cloud provider, resulting in lower user adoption and affecting the game's reputation. Our investors want more key performance indicators (KPIs) to evaluate the speed and stability of the game, as well as other metrics that provide deeper insight into usage patterns so we can adapt the game to target users. Additionally, our current technology stack cannot provide the scale we need, so we want to replace MySQL and move to an environment that provides autoscaling, low latency load balancing, and frees us up from managing physical servers.
Hide Case Study

Company overview
Mountkirk Games makes online, session-based, multiplayer games for mobile platforms. They have recently started expanding to other platforms after successfully migrating their on-premises environments to Google Cloud.
Their most recent endeavor is to create a retro-style first-person shooter (FPS) game that allows hundreds of simultaneous players to join a geo-specific digital arena from multiple platforms and locations. A real-time digital banner will display a global leaderboard of all the top players across every active arena.
Solution concept
Mountkirk Games is building a new multiplayer game that they expect to be very popular. They plan to deploy the game's backend on Google Kubernetes Engine so they can scale rapidly and use Google's global load balancer to route players to the closest regional game arenas. In order to keep the global leader board in sync, they plan to use a multi-region Spanner cluster.
Existing technical environment
The existing environment was recently migrated to Google Cloud, and five games came across using lift-and- shift virtual machine migrations, with a few minor exceptions. Each new game exists in an isolated Google Cloud project nested below a folder that maintains most of the permissions and network policies. Legacy games with low traffic have been consolidated into a single project. There are also separate environments for development and testing.
Business requirements
Support multiple gaming platforms.

Support multiple regions.

Support rapid iteration of game features.

Minimize latency.

Optimize for dynamic scaling.

Use managed services and pooled resources.

Minimize costs.

Technical requirements
Dynamically scale based on game activity.

Publish scoring data on a near real-time global leaderboard.

Store game activity logs in structured files for future analysis.

Use GPU processing to render graphics server-side for multi-platform support.

Support eventual migration of legacy games to this new platform.

Executive statement
Our last game was the first time we used Google Cloud, and it was a tremendous success. We were able to analyze player behavior and game telemetry in ways that we never could before. This success allowed us to bet on a full migration to the cloud and to start building all-new games using cloud-native design principles. Our new game is our most ambitious to date and will open up doors for us to support more gaming platforms beyond mobile. Latency is our top priority, although cost management is the next most important challenge. As with our first cloud-based game, we have grown to expect the cloud to enable advanced analytics capabilities so we can rapidly iterate on our deployments of bug fixes and new functionality.
Hide Case Study

Company overview
Mountkirk Games makes online, session-based, multiplayer games for mobile platforms. They have recently started expanding to other platforms after successfully migrating their on-premises environments to Google Cloud.
Their most recent endeavor is to create a retro-style first-person shooter (FPS) game that allows hundreds of simultaneous players to join a geo-specific digital arena from multiple platforms and locations. A real-time digital banner will display a global leaderboard of all the top players across every active arena.
Solution concept
Mountkirk Games is building a new multiplayer game that they expect to be very popular. They plan to deploy the game's backend on Google Kubernetes Engine so they can scale rapidly and use Google's global load balancer to route players to the closest regional game arenas. In order to keep the global leader board in sync, they plan to use a multi-region Spanner cluster.
Existing technical environment
The existing environment was recently migrated to Google Cloud, and five games came across using lift-and- shift virtual machine migrations, with a few minor exceptions. Each new game exists in an isolated Google Cloud project nested below a folder that maintains most of the permissions and network policies. Legacy games with low traffic have been consolidated into a single project. There are also separate environments for development and testing.
Business requirements
Support multiple gaming platforms.

Support multiple regions.

Support rapid iteration of game features.

Minimize latency.

Optimize for dynamic scaling.

Use managed services and pooled resources.

Minimize costs.

Technical requirements
Dynamically scale based on game activity.

Publish scoring data on a near real-time global leaderboard.

Store game activity logs in structured files for future analysis.

Use GPU processing to render graphics server-side for multi-platform support.

Support eventual migration of legacy games to this new platform.

Executive statement
Our last game was the first time we used Google Cloud, and it was a tremendous success. We were able to analyze player behavior and game telemetry in ways that we never could before. This success allowed us to bet on a full migration to the cloud and to start building all-new games using cloud-native design principles. Our new game is our most ambitious to date and will open up doors for us to support more gaming platforms beyond mobile. Latency is our top priority, although cost management is the next most important challenge. As with our first cloud-based game, we have grown to expect the cloud to enable advanced analytics capabilities so we can rapidly iterate on our deployments of bug fixes and new functionality.
Hide Case Study

Company overview
Mountkirk Games makes online, session-based, multiplayer games for mobile platforms. They have recently started expanding to other platforms after successfully migrating their on-premises environments to Google Cloud.
Their most recent endeavor is to create a retro-style first-person shooter (FPS) game that allows hundreds of simultaneous players to join a geo-specific digital arena from multiple platforms and locations. A real-time digital banner will display a global leaderboard of all the top players across every active arena.
Solution concept
Mountkirk Games is building a new multiplayer game that they expect to be very popular. They plan to deploy the game's backend on Google Kubernetes Engine so they can scale rapidly and use Google's global load balancer to route players to the closest regional game arenas. In order to keep the global leader board in sync, they plan to use a multi-region Spanner cluster.
Existing technical environment
The existing environment was recently migrated to Google Cloud, and five games came across using lift-and- shift virtual machine migrations, with a few minor exceptions. Each new game exists in an isolated Google Cloud project nested below a folder that maintains most of the permissions and network policies. Legacy games with low traffic have been consolidated into a single project. There are also separate environments for development and testing.
Business requirements
Support multiple gaming platforms.

Support multiple regions.

Support rapid iteration of game features.

Minimize latency.

Optimize for dynamic scaling.

Use managed services and pooled resources.

Minimize costs.

Technical requirements
Dynamically scale based on game activity.

Publish scoring data on a near real-time global leaderboard.

Store game activity logs in structured files for future analysis.

Use GPU processing to render graphics server-side for multi-platform support.

Support eventual migration of legacy games to this new platform.

Executive statement
Our last game was the first time we used Google Cloud, and it was a tremendous success. We were able to analyze player behavior and game telemetry in ways that we never could before. This success allowed us to bet on a full migration to the cloud and to start building all-new games using cloud-native design principles. Our new game is our most ambitious to date and will open up doors for us to support more gaming platforms beyond mobile. Latency is our top priority, although cost management is the next most important challenge. As with our first cloud-based game, we have grown to expect the cloud to enable advanced analytics capabilities so we can rapidly iterate on our deployments of bug fixes and new functionality.
Hide Case Study

Company overview
Mountkirk Games makes online, session-based, multiplayer games for mobile platforms. They have recently started expanding to other platforms after successfully migrating their on-premises environments to Google Cloud.
Their most recent endeavor is to create a retro-style first-person shooter (FPS) game that allows hundreds of simultaneous players to join a geo-specific digital arena from multiple platforms and locations. A real-time digital banner will display a global leaderboard of all the top players across every active arena.
Solution concept
Mountkirk Games is building a new multiplayer game that they expect to be very popular. They plan to deploy the game's backend on Google Kubernetes Engine so they can scale rapidly and use Google's global load balancer to route players to the closest regional game arenas. In order to keep the global leader board in sync, they plan to use a multi-region Spanner cluster.
Existing technical environment
The existing environment was recently migrated to Google Cloud, and five games came across using lift-and- shift virtual machine migrations, with a few minor exceptions. Each new game exists in an isolated Google Cloud project nested below a folder that maintains most of the permissions and network policies. Legacy games with low traffic have been consolidated into a single project. There are also separate environments for development and testing.
Business requirements
Support multiple gaming platforms.

Support multiple regions.

Support rapid iteration of game features.

Minimize latency.

Optimize for dynamic scaling.

Use managed services and pooled resources.

Minimize costs.

Technical requirements
Dynamically scale based on game activity.

Publish scoring data on a near real-time global leaderboard.

Store game activity logs in structured files for future analysis.

Use GPU processing to render graphics server-side for multi-platform support.

Support eventual migration of legacy games to this new platform.

Executive statement
Our last game was the first time we used Google Cloud, and it was a tremendous success. We were able to analyze player behavior and game telemetry in ways that we never could before. This success allowed us to bet on a full migration to the cloud and to start building all-new games using cloud-native design principles. Our new game is our most ambitious to date and will open up doors for us to support more gaming platforms beyond mobile. Latency is our top priority, although cost management is the next most important challenge. As with our first cloud-based game, we have grown to expect the cloud to enable advanced analytics capabilities so we can rapidly iterate on our deployments of bug fixes and new functionality.
Hide Case Study

Company overview
Mountkirk Games makes online, session-based, multiplayer games for mobile platforms. They have recently started expanding to other platforms after successfully migrating their on-premises environments to Google Cloud.
Their most recent endeavor is to create a retro-style first-person shooter (FPS) game that allows hundreds of simultaneous players to join a geo-specific digital arena from multiple platforms and locations. A real-time digital banner will display a global leaderboard of all the top players across every active arena.
Solution concept
Mountkirk Games is building a new multiplayer game that they expect to be very popular. They plan to deploy the game's backend on Google Kubernetes Engine so they can scale rapidly and use Google's global load balancer to route players to the closest regional game arenas. In order to keep the global leader board in sync, they plan to use a multi-region Spanner cluster.
Existing technical environment
The existing environment was recently migrated to Google Cloud, and five games came across using lift-and- shift virtual machine migrations, with a few minor exceptions. Each new game exists in an isolated Google Cloud project nested below a folder that maintains most of the permissions and network policies. Legacy games with low traffic have been consolidated into a single project. There are also separate environments for development and testing.
Business requirements
Support multiple gaming platforms.

Support multiple regions.

Support rapid iteration of game features.

Minimize latency.

Optimize for dynamic scaling.

Use managed services and pooled resources.

Minimize costs.

Technical requirements
Dynamically scale based on game activity.

Publish scoring data on a near real-time global leaderboard.

Store game activity logs in structured files for future analysis.

Use GPU processing to render graphics server-side for multi-platform support.

Support eventual migration of legacy games to this new platform.

Executive statement
Our last game was the first time we used Google Cloud, and it was a tremendous success. We were able to analyze player behavior and game telemetry in ways that we never could before. This success allowed us to bet on a full migration to the cloud and to start building all-new games using cloud-native design principles. Our new game is our most ambitious to date and will open up doors for us to support more gaming platforms beyond mobile. Latency is our top priority, although cost management is the next most important challenge. As with our first cloud-based game, we have grown to expect the cloud to enable advanced analytics capabilities so we can rapidly iterate on our deployments of bug fixes and new functionality.
Hide Case Study