My Journey to become Google Cloud Certified Cloud Digital Leader (Beta)
Ever since I got my CDL Credential on June 25, 2021, many Program and Delivery Leaders began asking me how to prepare for CDL Exam. Hence I thought, let me pen down my thoughts and content I went through before I appeared for this interesting exam from Google.
Please bear in mind this is based on Beta exam (which is known to be tougher than actual GA). Hope it helps
In May’21 Google Introduced its latest Certification in Beta — Cloud Digital Leader, being a Cloud Enthusiast, moment I saw a post on LinkedIn I made up my mind it must be a great opportunity to expand on my GCP Learning.
Taking a call to go for Beta Exam by Google was not easy, as not enough published information and preparation material available, since I recently got my GCP ACE Credential, I decided to go for it on May 16th, 2021. This was long 3 Hour Exam and must confess it was truly an advance complexity exam and needed one greater depth understanding of GCP content even beyond the Study Guide.
About this certification exam
- Length: 3 hours
- Questions: 104 (In GA this may Change, not sure though)
- Exam format: Multiple choice and multiple select
- Delivery : Online Proctored
- Exam Guide : Google Cloud Digital Leader Certification Exam Guide
The Cloud Digital Leader exam assesses your knowledge in three areas:
- General cloud knowledge
- General Google Cloud knowledge
- Google Cloud products and services
However exam goes way beyond, all the hands on labs I did in Coursera & Qwiklab came handy to choose the right answers in the exam, as this assessment checks your understanding on multiple aspects of Cloud Computing, Cloud Adoption Framework, Business Transformation, AI/ML, GCP Services and beyond as a Leader.
As per Exam Guide — Review the recommended curriculum, including the following on-demand courses and additional resources.
- Course — Business Transformation with Google Cloud
- Course — Google Cloud Product Fundamentals
- Impact Study — Google Cloud Adoption Framework
- Resource — Google Cloud Solutions
Certification exam guide elaborates that:
- A Cloud Digital Leader can articulate the capabilities of Google Cloud core products and services and how they benefit organizations.
- The Cloud Digital Leader can also describe common business use cases and how cloud solutions support an enterprise.
- The Cloud Digital Leader exam is job-role agnostic and does not require hands-on experience with Google Cloud.
Special Note : Since Jun’21 CDL exam is moved in GA — recommended path as per Google https://cloud.google.com/training/business#cloud-digital-leader-path is updated.
Recommended courses
Additional Courses About Google Cloud Business Essentials Certificate
If you are looking to upskill on Google Cloud’s technology and/or to lead or influence your organization’s digital transformation projects Coursera recommends that you take additional courses. And advise that we consider first, the Business Transformation with Google Cloud course and then refer to the course list below for more additional training.
Other recommended courses
The following is a list of additional courses and materials that were mentioned in this course. To learn more about the Google Cloud business course offerings, check out:
Solve Business Challenges with Google Cloud | Google Cloud Training .
- Infrastructure: Google Cloud Platform: Core Infrastructure
- App development: Getting Started with Application Development
- ML and AI: Managing Machine Learning Projects with Google Cloud (the course offers hands-on labs to help you practice applying the concepts and tools)
- Billing and Cost Management: Understanding Your Google Cloud Platform Costs and Optimizing Your Google Cloud Platform Costs
Privacy, security and compliance resources
Key References
- Cloud Computing Services | Google Cloud
- Compliance Reports Manager
- Cloud Customer Care Portfolio
- Google Cloud Adoption Framework Impact Study
- Google Cloud Solutions Overview
- Cloud Customer Case Studies
- Customer Care | Google Cloud
Online Trainings
In addition spent good time on following courses on Coursera:
Organizational Change and Culture for Adopting GCP
Cloud Architecture with Google Cloud Professional Certificate
GCP Services referred many times in Exam:
Command Center — Security Command Center | Google Cloud
Google Cloud Armor — Cloud Armor Network Security | Google Cloud Armor
Cloud Customer Care Portfolio — Customer Care | Google Cloud
Role Based — Basic, Development, Production & Premium Support
Storage Transfer Service — Storage Transfer Service | Google Cloud
Cloud AutoML — Cloud AutoML Custom Machine Learning Models | Google Cloud
TensorFlow Enterprise — Tensor Flow Enterprise | TensorFlow Enterprise | Google Cloud
Compliance Reports Manager — Compliance reports manager | Google Cloud
Google Cloud security best practices center — Cloud Security Best Practices Center | Google Cloud
Anthos — Anthos Modern Application Platform | Google Cloud
Build what’s next. Better software. Faster. — Cloud Computing, Hosting Services, and APIs | Google Cloud
Compute Services — Cloud Computing Services | Google Cloud
Artificial Intelligence — AI Platform, Natural Language API, Vison API & TenSor Flow
Machine Learning — AutoML, Application of discounts (e.g., flat-rate, committed use discounts [CUD], sustained use discounts [SUD])
Storage — Cloud Storage — Standard and Coldline, Dataproc / Pub-Sub / Dataflow / Cloud Big Table / BigQuery / Cloud SQL, Cloud Spanner (At least 7–10 Questions) & Data Transfer
Identity — Cloud Identity, Google Cloud Directory Sync, and Identity Access Management (IAM), Organization Hierarchy & Organization / Folder / Projects
Networking — Networking — On-Premised to Google Cloud
DevOps — CI/CD, Cloud Build, Cloud Repository,
Learnings / Suggestions:
Master the content by gaining a deeper understanding of the concepts in these courses and of course there is no alternative to hands on, so don't skip the Qwiklabs in these courses. Finally all the hard work, focussed studies, paid off with a great news when I got my Credential from Google.
Special Thanks to all the Coursera Trainers Who Taught Major Concepts included in Recommended Courses and don't forget to go thru the links from other GCP Experts whose references I have mentioned at end.
Happy Cloud Digital Leader Learning, See you in the Google Cloud.
Thanks for reading this article so far. If you have any questions or feedback then please drop a note.
