So you’re renewing your GCP Cloud solutions architect certification!
Wow 2 years flew past fast. I had to renew my cert and this time it was gonna take half the allotted time and half the number of questions! Woot. I was also going to actually prep properly this time or at least try !
I now had 2 more years hands on experience with GCP since when I took the beta cert. This was good and bad as some stuff I was very very familiar with and others I knew I needed to refresh my knowledge .
So what I decided to do was to figure out what areas I needed to really double down on. So the first thing I did was to take a trial run through some practice questions .
There is one practice set of questions on the GCP cert site for each cert and I was re-certifying for the the Cloud Architect cert so I was interested in that practice exam So I took that.
I also tried the trial practice questions at Whizlabs which I thought were probably fairly representative ( No idea really but I like their focus on use cases ) . When I purchased the test questions ( jan ’19) they still had questions referencing the Jencomart use case. That apart the questions were okay even if they were not exactly up to date for example referencing GKE as Container engine instead of Kubernetes engine. I did report that but the problem I was reporting got lost in translation so I figure they’ll sort it out at some point!
As ever read the questions carefully you usually end up by a matter of elimination with two answers that are very close and you need to pick between them
From my initial run through of the practice / trial questions I knew I needed to double down on Cloud IoT . I also found I needed to revisit Stackdriver which has got so many new things since the last time I did the cert!
Don’t assume because you’ve been using a product for a few years that you know enough to not bother revising at least a bit on those areas. I’d say I know a fair amount about Stackdriver but I don’t use all it’s features. I wasn’t that surprised that it was obvious from the trial questions that I needed to spend some time improving my depth there . Tip 1 validate your knowledge in some way so you can identify areas you need to rediscover/ relearn/ get deeper when you do some prep work
Determine what works best for you to prepare . I went through my flowchart posts, went through all the Cloud IoT and Stackdriver docs and re-read some of the solution docs particularly focusing on any Cloud IoT ones published. Tip 2 Draft out how you intend to prep looking at what you are going to read or re- read and get some hands on with. Block time out in your calendar to do this !
There have been some changes since I took the original beta like the fact you can read the use cases whenever you desire . Many of the questions are based on them . Tip 3 download the use cases and get familiar with them prior to taking your certification.
Once you have done some prep and familiarised yourself with the use cases invest in some test questions. I liked the Whizlabs one so invested in those. They provide 3 exam length set of questions when you purchase them so you should block out time to do those. I just wish they had more than 3 sets as I was seriously bored of them by the last round of doing them Tip 4 purchase some practice exams , block time out to do those and log out of email & chat when doing them.
I gave myself 3 weeks from purchasing the test questions to actually taking the cert. Tip 5 book the cert as soon as you can don’t procrastinate. This helps you to focus and not keep putting it off . This Tip is actually down to my manager Tom who when I spoke to him about my original cert running out said book it don’t keep putting it off!
I blocked out about day a week to mostly try and do the practice questions. I often only spent half a day on these though as I got a little bored of doing them! Maybe don’t do as I did. It worked for me as an approach though ( spoiler alert I guess as to how this ended 😃) but maybe you’ll find a more fun way of preparing. I think I’ll probably do a different cert in two years time to mix it up a little. The fact it was January which is not normally as busy as the rest of the year for me anyway meant it was fairly easy for me to block out the time!
As an aside for those of you who have read my previous missives on taking the beta for this cert 2 years ago ( from when this was written) will hopefully be happy to know that this time I was prepared for the crappy test centre conditions and dressed in a warm hoody ! The fact it was snowing ensured I was dressed warmly anyway.
So what was it like actually retaking it?
It started off with the familiar decrepitude of the test centre . That feeling like you’re in a cheesy movie or TV cop show where you’re having to hand in your watch , phone and bag so it’s just you and no Google handy to help you out when you get stuck! I know I may not watch that much TV but I sure watch a lot of popcorn TV when I do! I also don’t get how crappy the test centre is but at least the toilets seems to have had a face lift !
Actually it was less fun than the beta as there wasn’t really as high a percentage as I expected of use case focused questions. Too many of the can you remember which particular command to use types. That kinda annoyed me slightly as imho what does remembering a command that you’d check in actual working conditions anyway prove with regards your daily working week as an architect?( But I digress) . The addressing customer use cases and architecture focused questions are the ones I enjoy the most as it reflects what I do helping customers . It turned out that for this “ professional” exam you need to do a lot of basic refreshing . Note make sure you refresh on the core services so Tip 6 brush up on the basics.
Yes I passed first attempt . Still there was that horrible moment before it flashes up pass or fail on screen where I held my breath releasing it in relief when I saw the pass!
oh and I got this top too for passing!
