Exam Certification (Nov 2023)
Disclaimer: Non official content, errors and omissions excepted.
If you are about to take the Google Cloud Professional Cloud Network Engineer, you have come to the right place. In this post I will cover my 2023 recertification journey and how the experience differs from the previous exam.
I first took the network engineer exam back in 2021. At that point, the exam was very similar to the Security exam. So if you had successfully taken one, it was likely you could pass the other.
Fast forward to 2023 and how things have changed. The networking exam is an absolute beast and 2 hours of hell. A key frustration here is the types of questions included. Gone are the short sentences and concise overview. Instead we now have some very long questions and damn it all to hell, Maths!!!
Honestly this is probably the toughest exam so far. It does require a lot of knowledge to prepare and take the actual exam. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.
OK, so why is this exam so difficult? Well, it covers a lot of material and I mean a lot…
The image above covers the topics that are outlined in the exam overview. Hopefully this gives you the context of the exam to be taken. Overall there are a lot of scenarios, a lot of very specific questions and some downright stinkers. BTW I used a different approach to revise this time around, but more on that later…
Ok, hopefully I have given you enough to chew on, let’s get into the exam…
Exam Topics
The exam guide helpfully provides an overview of the areas to be assessed. In broad strokes your are expected to know:
- How to design, plan and prototype a Google Cloud network
- Configure network services
- Manage, monitor and optimise network operations
- Implement Virtual Private Cloud (VPC)
- Implement hybrid connectivity
If you haven’t actually dealt with hybrid connectivity, you will need to focus a lot of time to learn this. Specifically how to set up stuff that routes, and stuff that provides a private network. In general, these products can be set up without special access, other things, you may just have to watch the hybrid connectivity demos (very carefully).
Even with this knowledge, I feel like this exam over any other I have taken will push your knowledge into a different stratosphere. Normally I would append a list of things to know, but the list is actually quite massive. Instead I will include some broad categories that were helpful to me during my revision.
- IAM — Learn the specifics of roles and permissions for Networking
- Compute — Learn the specifics of how connectivity is achieve
- Storage — Learn how to troubleshoot
- Analytics — Learn how to use to troubleshoot and analyse
- Networking — Pretty much everything on the product list (and sub-categories)!
- Databases — Understand how managed databases use networks (it’s pretty cool)
- Operations — More troubleshooting
- Security — Optimal networking track and trace
ProTip: In most of the Google Cloud professional exams, the use case for a product is super important! In the networking exam, you are also tested on how the product is configured. Don’t know the difference between DNS, CDN and Load Balancer, you will need to in order to pass this exam.
Exam Experience
So we know that the exam can be taken in an exam facility or remotely.
Taking the exam at a facility is the easiest option, as the environment is set up for you in advance. All you need to do is turn up and provide identification to verify your participation.
If you choose to take a proctored exam remotely, remember to leave time for the pre-check. Realistically, you should budget an additional 30 minutes either side of the 2 hour exam.
For once, the Webassessor site was actually working. The identification check is now performed using a mobile, so make sure you have it close at hand and ready to take a photo. Also be aware that the location the exam is taken in, needs to be cleared of clutter — so make sure you do that first. I took this exam using a Mac computer, ensure you have the custom browser updated and ready to go. Only the Browser can be running when starting the custom browser. If you have other applications running, the custom browser will attempt to close them. The software was quite flakey, so you might want to be proactive and close any other applications down before initiating the custom browser.
Below is a quick summary of the pre-exam activities.
- Kryterion Sentinel software (Windows/Mac) installation requires administrator rights
- Kryterion system check, try and do this at least a day before to be on the safe side
- No breaks allowed during the two hour exam
- Do take the practice exam to build some confidence prior to the actual exam
- (Try and) get a good night’s sleep before the exam
- The exam is multiple choice, so attempt to rule out the wrong answers first!!
So you have finished, and hopefully passed the exam. Let’s cover what happens if you don’t complete the exam successfully first.
If you are in the unfortunate situation that you haven’t successfully passed the exam, you won’t get much additional information. The Google Cloud certification team does not provide information beyond pass/fail. Therefore it is super important during the exam to use the marker to give yourself an indication to what extent you were able to cover the questions asked. It’s also worth noting that if you attempt the exam again, you are unlikely to get the same questions!
Ok, so you passed the exam, now what? If you really can’t wait to verify your exam status, you can visit the Webassessor site to see the immediate result. At some point you will get a confirmation email to celebrate your elite status 🙂.
Don’t ignore the confirmation email as it includes additional access to things such as your digital cert. When you login to the certmetrics site, it may initially include everything you are eligible for, so keep checking it for the swag voucher. Ditto if you are after a particular bit of swag, patience is the key if you are outside of the US.
Training Material
If you have gotten this far, I hopefully haven’t put you off taking the exam.
Feedback on my Professional Cloud Architect post was that folks wanted links to the training material. I initially didn’t use the usual training (Coursera/Pluralsight) as I foolishly thought I had sufficient knowledge to cover the exam. And also man these courses are like watching paint dry 😂
Anyhoo, instead I decided to watch a lot of YouTube videos from Google Cloud Next and read lots of Official Google Cloud blogs and documentation. I prefer this approach and it was way more interesting and informative. Please note mileage will vary, so pick the appropriate content for your learning style.
For this exam, I changed my revision approach and started using Obsidian to create a list of topics and associate information. I have to say, I am a convert, the information really sticks and is super easy to access.
Once I figure out how to publish this, I will add a link to the content 😁
Exam Summary
So is the Google Cloud Certified Professional Cloud Network Engineer still worth it in 2023?
I would only take this exam if you are a network engineer or you intend to be a network engineer. The exam is super specific to that role, so is not imho a general certification that has benefit to other groups. It is a super useful skill set, but it’s really hard to recommend if you don’t deal with networking on a daily basis.
By the way there are a number of other exams to take in this series. In no particular order:
