Exam Certification (Mar 2024)
Disclaimer: Non official content, errors and omissions excepted.
Ah Databases you stole my heart. If you are looking to work with these fabulous creatures on Google Cloud, you should consider the Database Engineer exam. It covers a lot of content relating to specific implementation scenarios for migrating between on-prem and a cloud provider..
The exam covers all things database and more. During your two hour exam, you can repent on the times you said the database was slow. Learn to tell the difference between structured and unstructured data. Make sensible decisions on geographic disbursement of database instances.
Are you convinced, cool, let’s get into the exam specifics.
Exam Topics
Looking at the exam contents, this is the first (I think) where there is a percentage allocation to each topic. I am not sure how useful this is, in the context of this exam, as the sections are quite broad. The exam currently has four sections:
- Design scalable and highly available cloud database solutions
- Manage a solution that can span multiple database solutions
- Migrate data solutions
- Deploy scalable and highly available databases in Google Cloud
Another case study free zone, so you can rest easy in that regard. I can’t really relate the percentages to the stated content, so it’s probably not worth covering this here. If anyone has any idea how to break this down, feel free to let me know and I will update accordingly.
As per other Google Cloud exams it is super useful to break product function in the following way:
- What — What does the product do?
- Why — Why would I use this product in comparison to something else?
- Where — Where would I see this used and with what other products?
- How — How do I use it?
Note: In most of the cloud provider exams, understanding “the why” use this product is super important! Understanding the characteristics of each product and the associated use case, will be highly relevant in the exam. Being able to make a choice between product A and product B is a key feature to doing well in the exam.
Specifically for the Database Engineer exam, you are expected to be very familiar with the Google Cloud databases. Looking at the exam guide, they don’t specifically cover which products are included. To avoid any issues, I won’t mention the specific databases, but you can probably guess which ones are included?
You should also note that the exam emphasis is not completely based on managing a Google Cloud environment. In the age of digital transformation, you are also expected to know how to manage a hybrid environment.
Exam Experience
Again my exam experience is once more based on taking this remotely. If you choose to take a proctored exam remotely, remember to leave time for the pre-check. Realistically, you should budget an additional 15 minutes either side of the 2 hour exam.
A small change on this iteration was the exam launch button didn’t become available until 10 minutes before the exam. In addition, identification requires the use of a phone to take a picture of you and your id.
Below is a quick summary of the pre-exam activities.
- Kryterion Sentinel software (Windows/Mac) installation requires administrator rights
- Install the correct version of the Browser (The site may be misleading regarding the last update)
- Kryterion system check, try and do this at least a day before to be on the safe side
- Your phone is used to provide verification of identification, so have this charged and available.
- Ensure you have identification available also, will need to take a picture, so good lighting is required
- Check the WiFi/physical network connection is strong as you will need a good connection!
- No breaks are allowed during the two hour exam
- Do take the relevant 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 rule out the wrong answers first!!
Training Material
If you have gotten this far, I haven’t put you off taking the exam.
In which case, the material I used to get ready for the exam is listed below.
Feedback on my Professional Cloud Architect post was that folks wanted links to the training material. Therefore I have created a specific Google Cloud Professional Database Engineer blog page for easier access (and updating for me).
Exam Extras
On successfully passing the exam, you are officially welcomed to the Cloud Certified Professionals. In previous years this included some pretty nice swag.
At the time of writing, completing the Professional Database Engineer exam successfully means you were eligible for swag. You will be eligible for goodies based on your geographic region (i.e Europe, India, Everywhere else).
Exam Summary
So is the Google Cloud Certified Professional Database Engineer worth it in 2024?
Overall I have to say this exam is actually very useful. There are a lot of things to consider when working with a database and this really brings them home. Understanding the quite varied choices of database offered and the associate use cases is worth the price of admission. If you don’t live in the world of Global databases and low latency/high throughput, you are missing a lot of detail. I would say this exam is actually a great complement to the Data, Security and Networking exams.
On the flip side, I appreciate that not everyone has $200 dollars to spend on the exam, so if you are merely enhancing your CV, the Cloud Architect certification is still the one to beat. Nevertheless, I quite enjoyed the content for this exam, so even if you are not going to take the exam, you should most definitely take the training!
As always there are a number of other exams to take in this series. In no particular order:
