Google Associate Cloud Engineer

Explanation

Correct Answer: A) roles/spanner.databaseUser

Why this is correct:

1. Specificity: The roles/spanner.databaseUser role is specifically designed for granting access to Cloud Spanner databases. It provides the necessary permissions to read and write data in Spanner databases.
2. Principle of Least Privilege: This role follows the security best practice of granting only the permissions needed for the specific task (accessing databases), rather than broader permissions.
3. Google Cloud IAM Best Practices: For database access, Google recommends using database-specific roles rather than general IAM roles.

Why other options are incorrect:

B) roles/viewer - This is a general IAM role that provides read-only access to view resources but doesn't grant database-specific permissions needed to read/write data in Cloud Spanner.

C) roles/owner - This role provides full administrative control over all resources in a project, which is excessive and violates the principle of least privilege for database access.

D) roles/editor - This role allows modifying resources but doesn't provide the specific database permissions needed for Cloud Spanner operations.

Key Takeaway: When granting access to specific Google Cloud services like Cloud Spanner, always use service-specific roles (prefixed with the service name) rather than general IAM roles for better security and appropriate permission scoping.