Monitoring a data lake's health and usage

Monitoring a Google Cloud data lake means using Cloud Monitoring, Cloud Logging, and service-specific metrics/audit logs to track storage health, access patterns, cost, and data freshness across Cloud Storage, BigQuery, and Dataproc/Dataplex. A well-monitored lake also enforces data quality and governance visibility via Dataplex and Data Catalog, ensuring issues like unauthorized access, stale partitions, or storage class misconfigurations are caught early.

Must-know

• Cloud Storage exposes bucket-level metrics (object count, total bytes, request counts/latencies by API method) in Cloud Monitoring, and Storage Insights can generate inventory reports for auditing objects and detecting misclassified storage classes.
• Cloud Audit Logs (Admin Activity and Data Access logs) record who accessed or modified objects/datasets; Data Access logs for Cloud Storage and BigQuery must be explicitly enabled since they are high-volume and cost extra.
• Dataplex provides data quality, data profiling, and lifecycle management scans across Cloud Storage and BigQuery assets, surfacing metrics like completeness, freshness, and validity rule pass rates directly in the console.
• BigQuery monitoring should track slot utilization, bytes scanned/billed, job errors, and long-running or failed queries via INFORMATION_SCHEMA views and Cloud Monitoring metrics, not just relying on the UI.
• Object Lifecycle Management events and storage class transitions (e.g., Standard to Nearline/Coldline/Archive) are not directly alertable by default, so tracking storage cost/age trends typically requires exporting billing or inventory data rather than assuming built-in alerts exist.
• Setting up alerting policies on Cloud Monitoring metrics (e.g., unusual spike in unauthorized access errors, sudden drop in ingestion rate, or storage growth anomalies) is the standard way to proactively catch data lake issues rather than relying solely on manual log review.

Coverage checked against the published exam guide on Aug 11, 2026.

These are independent practice questions, written against this certification's published exam guide. They are not the certification vendor's own questions, and not the real exam.