Consolidating Multi-Project Monitoring in One Stackdriver Dashboard

ACE By islever Editorial Last updated

Monitoring and logging.

Short answer

C Configure a single Stackdriver Monitoring account (workspace) and link every project to it so all resources report under one dashboard.

Question

You need to monitor resources that are distributed over different projects in Google Cloud Platform. You want to consolidate reporting under the same Stackdriver
Monitoring dashboard. What should you do?
  1. Use Shared VPC to connect all projects, and link Stackdriver to one of the projects.
  2. For each project, create a Stackdriver account. In each project, create a service account for that project and grant it the role of Stackdriver Account Editor in all other projects.
  3. Configure a single Stackdriver account, and link all projects to the same account. Correct Answer
  4. Configure a single Stackdriver account for one of the projects. In Stackdriver, create a Group and add the other project names as criteria for that Group.

Key Takeaways

The question tests whether you understand that Stackdriver workspaces aggregate multiple projects, with the trap being that Groups (option D) are meant for organizing resources within a project, not for linking projects together.

When GCP resources span multiple projects, consolidating reporting requires a single Stackdriver (Google Cloud Monitoring) account—now called a workspace—into which every project is linked. The question establishes that option C is correct because one Stackdriver account can monitor any number of GCP projects under one set of dashboards.

Common mistake: Option D is the most common wrong pick: learners assume adding other project names as Group criteria unifies monitoring, but Groups filter resources by labels and metadata within a workspace—they do not attach additional projects to a Stackdriver account.

Expert Analysis

Why the Answer Is Correct

Option C is correct because a single Stackdriver (Google Cloud Monitoring) account, technically a workspace hosted by one project, can monitor any number of GCP projects once those projects are linked as monitored projects. Linking them places all their metrics, dashboards, and alerting policies under one account, which is exactly the consolidation of reporting under one dashboard the question asks for. This is Google's documented best practice for multi-project monitoring, and commenters such as leba cited the Stackdriver Monitoring documentation confirming that one workspace can watch many projects. Multiple community members independently arrived at C, including Buruguduystunstugudunstu and HansKloss611.

Why the Other Options Are Wrong

Option A confuses networking with monitoring: Shared VPC connects project networks but does not itself aggregate Stackdriver data, and merely linking Stackdriver to one project without linking the others leaves their metrics uncollected. Option B is needlessly complex and wrong—creating a separate account per project produces siloed reporting, and a Stackdriver Account Editor service account in every project does not merge dashboards into one view. Option D fails because Groups are resource-grouping constructs built from criteria like instance names or labels within a workspace; as sahedge reported, adding two projects as group criteria did not work for them, and Agents89 noted that groups are for resource grouping, not project linking. kipsnak also observed that Stackdriver branding is now Google Cloud Monitoring and multi-project aggregation is done via a multi-project workspace—which is still option C in substance.

Community Comment Notes

Commenters largely converged on C, with coldpar stating "C is correct not D" and ReyBan sharing the official link for adding monitored projects to a workspace. sahedge, with the most-liked comment, explained that D is incorrect because "Groups are used to define alerts on set of resources" and that project-based group criteria failed in practice. The sole dissent came from bryanchew, who argued D is needed because a workspace requires a hosting project—but that hosting-project requirement is satisfied by the single account in option C, so it does not make D correct. kipsnak helpfully warned that the Stackdriver name is legacy, yet the underlying multi-project workspace behavior still maps to option C.

Official Reference

https://cloud.google.com/monitoring/workspaces/create#add-monitored-project

This link opens the official vendor documentation in a new tab.

Exam Strategy

On consolidation questions, look for the option that creates ONE central object and attaches the rest to it; multi-object or per-object options almost always fragment reporting instead of unifying it. Remember that Shared VPC solves networking, not monitoring aggregation.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why is adding projects as a Group criterion (option D) wrong?

Groups filter resources inside an existing workspace using labels and metadata criteria; they cannot attach new projects to a Stackdriver account, so other projects' metrics would still go uncollected.

Does Shared VPC help consolidate Stackdriver dashboards across projects?

No. Shared VPC links project networks for traffic, not monitoring data; dashboards consolidate only when the projects are linked as monitored projects in one workspace.

More ACE FAQ →

Discussion 62 contributions

Compiled from public community threads and reader submissions, lightly edited for clarity. Handles and vote tallies are shown as recorded, and comments reflect the views of individual contributors.

From public community threads 30 of 62

  1. sahedge 👍 101
    First of all D is incorrect, Groups are used to define alerts on set of resources(such as VM instances, databases, and load balancers). FYI tried adding Two projects into a group it did not allowed me as the "AND"/"OR" criteria for the group failed with this combination of resources. C is correct because, When you intially click on Monitoring(Stackdriver Monitoring) it creates a workspac(a stackdriver account) linked to the ACTIVE(CURRENT) Project from which it was clicked. Now if you change the project and again click onto Monitoring it would create an another workspace(a stackdriver account) linked to the changed ACTIVE(CURRENT) Project, we don't want this as this would not consolidate our result into a single dashboard(workspace/stackdriver account). If you have accidently created two diff workspaces merge them under Monitoring > Settings > Merge Workspaces > MERGE. If we have only one workspace and two projects we can simply add other GCP Project under Monitoring > Settings > GCP Projects > Add GCP Projects. In both of these cases we did not create a GROUP, we just linked GCP Project to the workspace(stackdriver account).
  2. Agents89 👍 12
    C is correct. Group is for resources grouping not projects linking
  3. leba 👍 9
    Correct C. Configure a single Stackdriver account, and link all projects to the same account. Correct answer is C as you can create a single Stackdriver account and add multiple projects to the same account.Refer GCP documentation - Stackdriver MonitoringA single Workspace can monitor any number of GCP projects or AWS accounts. The best-practice recommendation to create a multi-project Workspace is as follows:Create a new GCP project..Option D is wrong as it is recommended to create a separate stackdriver account instead of an account for one of the project.
  4. bryanchew 👍 7
    D is correct. In a Workspace you need a hosting project for stackdriver
  5. YashBindlish 👍 6
    Correct answer is C as you can create a single Stackdriver account and add multiple projects to the same account.
Show 25 more comments
  1. ReyBan 👍 6
    i will vote for C: https://cloud.google.com/monitoring/workspaces/create#add-monitored-project
  2. Buruguduystunstugudunstuy 👍 5 Answered C
    Answer C. Configure a single Stackdriver account and link all projects to the same account. By linking all projects to the same Stackdriver account, you can consolidate monitoring and reporting for all resources across multiple projects. This can be done by following the instructions provided by Stackdriver on how to add projects to an account. Answer A is not the best solution since Shared VPC does not consolidate the monitoring and reporting of resources distributed over different projects. Answer B is not an efficient solution as it requires creating multiple Stackdriver accounts, which can lead to confusion and inefficiency. Answer D is not the best solution as it only groups the projects under one account, but it does not consolidate monitoring and reporting.
  3. kipsnak 👍 5
    I fear that no answer is OK nowadays for this question, since stackdriver solution does not exist anymore and has been replaced by Google Cloud monitoring. So, to aggregate more than one project monitoring to the same view, you need to use multi-projects workspace (or merge the automatically created or single project workspace into one workspace). Anyway, this question may no longer be accurate, otherwise it gonna be quite confusing.
  4. cloudenthu01 👍 4
    As questions says resources are spread across Projects. C is correct as it correctly creates one host project & links all other projects to Host project. D is incorrect as to group resources based on project, they have to be linked together first. There is no mention of this has already been done.
  5. ESP_SAP 👍 4
    Correct Answer should be C: https://cloud.google.com/monitoring/workspaces/manage https://cloud.google.com/monitoring/workspaces/manage#single-project-ws
  6. prasanu 👍 4
    Anser is C, As I just added few of my projects to one stackdriver account
  7. KC_go_reply 👍 3 Answered C
    The correct answer is C. Configure a single Stackdriver account, and link all projects to the same account. Stackdriver Monitoring (now Google Cloud Monitoring) doesn't work on a per-project account basis. There's a single Monitoring service that spans your entire Google Cloud organization. All projects within the organization can automatically report metrics to this single Monitoring instance. You don't need to create separate accounts or use complex workarounds like Shared VPC or inter-project service accounts. Option C directly addresses this by leveraging the inherent design of Cloud Monitoring. Options A, B, and D are incorrect because they introduce unnecessary complexity and don't utilize the built-in functionality of Google Cloud Monitoring for consolidated reporting across multiple projects. They might even lead to permission issues and difficulties in maintaining a unified view of your resources.
  8. cuban123 👍 3
    I correct myself, should be C, since it is recommended to have a separate project for creating workspace and then adding other projects into it. Option D says: use existing.
  9. yasu 👍 3
    I think C is correct, since D are the wrong steps, we need to get into setting to add other Project, not group
  10. Hi2ALL 👍 3
    C is correct imo GCP Console> Monitoring>Settings>at the bottom Merge Workspaces to consolidate all projects
  11. Bhagirathi 👍 3
    C or D - finally ??
  12. mlantonis 👍 3
    Correct is C
  13. edoo 👍 2 Answered C
    D is incorrect because a stackdriver group can group resources but not projects. Creating a single Stackdriver account in one project and creating a Group with other project names as criteria does not automatically aggregate and monitor metrics from different projects in a single dashboard. While creating a Group can help organize and manage metrics, it does not provide a solution for linking and monitoring metrics from different projects. You would still need to separately configure and link each project to the Stackdriver account to monitor their respective metrics.
  14. ESP_SAP 👍 2
    Monitored projects A Google Cloud project or AWS account can be monitored by exactly 1 Workspace. A Workspace always monitors its Google Cloud host project. However, you can configure a Workspace to monitor up to 100 Google Cloud projects and AWS accounts. https://cloud.google.com/monitoring/workspaces#monitored-projects
  15. JKRowlings 👍 2
    Correct answer is D. There is a qwiklab- Monitoring Multiple Projects with Cloud Monitoring explaining the steps. Create a Single Stackdriver account for one of the project. Then create a group and all the other project to the group.
  16. ravenor 👍 2
    "View metrics for multiple Cloud projects: C. https://cloud.google.com/monitoring/settings/multiple-projects Nothing about groups https://cloud.google.com/monitoring/settings?hl=en
  17. entrhopy 👍 2
    C is correct, doesn't make sense to create one account for one project when you need to monitor all of them, just create one account and link them all!
  18. saurabh1805 👍 2
    but you still need one project to host it. You can choose one of project and create individual workspace for all project.
  19. mcaromit 👍 2
    C...create a Workspace for a host project & add the other GCP projects or AWS accounts to monitor
  20. Nischay 👍 2
    D is correct, as you can add projects into Groups as criteria
  21. gsmasad 👍 2 Answered C
    C is more correct, just link them into one
  22. FernandoJ 👍 2 Answered D
    https://cloud.google.com/monitoring/groups
  23. beginnercloud 👍 2
    D is not correct answer. C is correct
  24. contaexamtopics 👍 2
    C or D?
  25. SanjeevKumar1983 👍 1 Answered D
    https://cloud.google.com/monitoring/settings Best practices for scoping projects We recommend that you use a new Google Cloud project or one without resources as the scoping project when you want to view metrics for multiple Google Cloud projects or AWS accounts. When a metrics scope contains monitored projects, to chart or monitor only those metrics stored in the scoping project, you must specify filters that exclude metrics from the monitored projects. The requirement to use filters increases the complexity of chart and alerting policy, and it increases the possibility of a configuration error. The recommendation ensures that these scoping projects don't generate metrics, so there are no metrics in the projects to chart or monitor.

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