My Journey to become a Google Cloud Certified Professional
The cloud technology market is growing. Coming from a database background, it quickly became very apparent to me that being able to use cloud technologies was becoming a requirement for any kind of data focused role.
Google recommends 1+ years designing and managing solutions using GCP for professional level certifications and I didn’t have that. With only a basic knowledge of the cloud at that point, my goal to achieve certification needed lot of preparations and I utilized a combination of online training resources.
I wanted to share the steps that helped me get certified and hopefully this will be of help to others on a similar quest. In a later post will also share my experience on getting certified as Professional Data Engineer (PDE).
So here we go …..
First read through the Google provided exam guide and case studies. The PCA exam has been redesigned after Nov 9, 2018 and now there are only 3 case studies versus 4 in the previous version of the exam.
Google provides a free tier with access to free resources for learning GCP. You can try the various GCP services on your own. This is very valuable, especially when you are completely new to the platform and wanting to learn GCP basics.
The free tier information can be found at https://cloud.google.com/free/docs/gcp-free-tier/
Once the free tier account was setup, it was time to check out some training resources and start preparing for the exam.
TIP: take the free practice exam that Google provides to familiarize you with the questions you may see on the actual certification exam and also to check your preparation. This exam can be taken any number of times. Highly recommend taking this before you being your training to gauge your existing knowledge and then periodically as you go thru training. This will help you understand your readiness and if you need more preparation in specific areas,
Google Architect Free Practice Exam https://cloud.google.com/certification/practice-exam/cloud-architect/
Training Resources
Coursera, Linux Academy & ROITraining are online training portals offering paid training courses and specializations geared towards GCP certification.
On Coursera check out the Architecting with Google Cloud Platform Specialization
On Linux Academy, the following courses played a great part in helping me getting the PCA certification
Google Cloud Essentials
Google Certified Professional Cloud Architect Courses (1–3)
Google Cloud Security Essentials
ROITraining also has some free learning resources, labs, quizzes and a practice exam.
Another valuable and useful online resource is Qwiklabs. They have a lot of free hands-on labs which give you hands-on practice with the different GCP technologies.
The GCP flowchart a day series on Medium.com was very helpful in understanding the way in which the different GCP services can be used
Additional resources –
YouTube Google Cloud channel
The Google Cloud Minute YouTube Channel
Google Cloud Solutions Architecture Reference
Google Cloud Platform in four words or less — A comprehensive list of all of the Google Cloud products and online resources with concise and succinct descriptions.
TIP: Take notes/screenshots as you go thru the training. Once you have completed all your training, I highly recommend going thru the Google practice test again. At the end, take notes / screenshots of the questions that you got wrong and compare these to the ones you took during training as this will help you identify specific areas that you need to work on before the actual exam.
Case Studies
Read these case studies thoroughly as there can be case study related questions that compose up to 40% of the actual exam.
The case studies have 3 components that have to be considered when designing a solution concept — Business Requirements, Technical Requirements & Executive statement.
It is not necessary to memorize each case study since it’s available on a split screen during the entire duration of the exam
Understand the difference of each possible solution concept and how it maps to the outlined business and technical requirements in terms of efficiency of the cloud resources, improved business agility, auto scaling, regional v/s global, cost optimization, support for existing application design, storing and processing large amounts of data, support for continuous deployment, encryption needs, migrating with minimal changes etc.
Look for subtle hints and keywords that point to specific architectural requirements and design choices as these are the key points when it comes to choosing the right set of solutions and services in GCP.
Some key points to be considered are listed below
Does the solution have to be regional or global?
Any requirements specific to Managed services (NoOps)
Auto scaling requirements
Replication to the cloud with minimal changes — for example existing Hadoop jobs can be migrated to Dataproc, with minimal modifications
Viable Storage options
Cost Optimization — — refer to Object Life cycle management to reduce costs
Need for Analytics
Monitoring to assess the viability of the solution
Just before giving the exam, refer to the Google Cloud Solutions Architecture Reference
Once you have gone thru the case studies, training courses and practice exams identify any pending weak areas that need more preparation. I would recommend that you go back and retake the specialization course to improve your knowledge and update your notes and take the practice exam again. I can’t stress enough the importance of retaking the practice exam multiple times. Apart from the Google provided exam, Coursera and Linux Academy also provide practice exams which can be taken multiple times.
Finally to answer any outstanding questions you may have please refer to the official Google Cloud Platform documentation
I wish you all success in preparing & passing the Professional Cloud Architect Exam.
Please feel free to reach out to me with any questions and I would be glad to help you.