Passing the GCP Professional Cloud Architect Exam
“This exam is too difficult for me”, I remembering muttering these words to my husband while my toddler ran around creating havoc. Like many PCA aspirants, I wasn’t the most confident person and didn’t know where to start. Achieving this certification hasn’t been just about giving an exam; it involved a lot of difficult decisions, hard work, practice labs and perseverance.
Why GCP?
One of the most common questions I get asked about is my choice of GCP over other cloud providers. Honestly, I’m not qualified enough to advocate one provider over the other, nor do I have the power to steer someone towards a particular provider. I’m just laying down some factors in simple colloquial language without involving a lot of technical jargon, that motivated me to learn more about GCP.
Apart from being one of the fastest growing cloud providers, I realized that GCP has a range of creative cost controls, easily consumable interface for first time users and a provision to automate deployment of multifaceted applications to the cloud. I found the analytics ability provided by GCP extremely intuitive and user friendly, apart from being rich in visualisation and customisation. GCP’s ability to perform batch and real time data processing, ability to modernize applications as well as the strong security features sealed the deal for me. I knew that I had to join the community of GCP certified architects and learn more about the Platform. I genuinely felt that the pace at which GCP is growing in their offerings and adoption would open new doors for me, and it had the advantage of novelty enabling more space for creativity.
Having said that, I’m not advertising for GCP or against the other Cloud providers. I’m yet to learn more about all the Cloud providers in the market, and my decision to go with GCP was more impulsive than calculated. Sometimes our first instinct is the one that drives us, right?
How Long Did the Preparation take?
I spent 8 months taking online courses, going over additional readings, doing practice labs and investing my time in all the online resources mentioned in this post. Having said that, this timeframe won’t be the same for everyone, depending upon the amount of hands on experience you have with GCP. The best way to answer this question is to create a granular study plan and stick to the timelines. However, remember to be flexible. Sometimes we under/overestimate our ability, which is totally fine. What’s important is to stay motivated and keep revising the materials as you go along.
I’d highly recommend anyone reading this, to go over the exam guidelines published by GCP to lay the groundwork and set expectations.
What Courses Can I Take?
Coursera Professional Certificate
This 6 course series is extremely well organized and presented by Google Cloud instructors, developer advocates and architects. The certificate is broken into 6 courses, requiring almost 50 hours of effort. The courses not only have amazing videos, reading materials, but also give you hands on experience with GCP through Qwiklabs . As a bonus, you also get to attempt challenge labs, to grow your experience and confidence.
Linux Academy
Even though I never felt the need to take this course, I’ve heard excellent reviews about the course material from my peers. I did go through some videos, and was impressed by how well the course was structured. The lectures and practice questions resonate a lot with the exam pattern, and can give you a good idea of what you can except on the actual day.
Where Can I find additional resources?
Priyanka Vergadia’s Website
The GCP sketch notes (Infographics on GCP products and services) and Cloud Bytes (GCP offerings explained in 1min) have the ability to stimulate your brain cells into remembering all the intricate details through rich visuals and processes. It helps you think like an architect and answer the “what”, “when”, “how” questions.
Learn GCP with Mahesh
Mahesh’s GCP channel has the best explanation of the case studies (that comprise of almost 30% of the exam questions), to help you make the right choices. I could hear his voice echo in my mind during the exam.
Apart from the case study explanation, Mahesh also has simple and crisp videos on GCP concepts, practice exam questions and exam tips.
Ivam’s GCP Guides
Whether you’re planning to give the PCA or any other professional certification, Ivam’s spreadsheet is a one stop shop for all the readings and resources that you need to prepare for the exam. This spreadsheet has pages from the official Google cloud website, YouTube links, blogs, web posts to help you in your journey.
Sathish VJ’s
Sathish’s Awesome GCP is another helpful YouTube channel where core concepts, exam tips are explained in simple terms for easy absorption and retention.
Apart from the useful channel, he has a rich collection of certification resources that can help you in your journey. This pool also has experiences jotted down by recent PCAs narrated from different perspectives.
Flowcharts
Flowcharts are the best way to remember flow of information and can help you retain important information in an organized manner. I used to refer to these flowcharts to clear my doubts and aid in my decision making during the training sessions. I’d highly recommend making a copy of each spreadsheet and going over them daily till they become second nature
Can I take Practice exams?
Of course you can! GCP has an official practice exam that you can take to gauge your readiness.
Apart from that BrainCert has a good collection of practice exam questions that you can leverage for your preparation
I’d highly recommend everyone to go over the tutorials provided by Google Codelabs to gain practical experience, and leverage Qwiklabs to explore the Platform till you feel comfortable. GCP is offering one month free QWiklabs access if you register to give the GCP certification.
How is the actual exam?
I decided to give the remote online proctored exam, since I didn’t want to risk traveling to an exam center with a toddler at home. The GCP-PCA exam consists of 50 questions that we’re supposed to complete in 2 hours. There’s no passing percentage published for the aspirants, and it’s discreetly decided by GCP.
It’s very simple to schedule the exam on the Kryterion website and check your system for compliance. Please remember to run the system check, download the latest version of Sentinel and complete your biometric profile prior to the exam to ensure a smooth process.
I could launch the actual exam 15min prior to the start time and complete all the checks (system, workplace, surroundings) on time. The exam is proctored throughout the 2 hours, and there’s no break in between.
I got 10 questions around the case studies, and the rest revolved around best practices, cloud migration, google services and products. I’m emphasizing again on the best practices, because they form the crux of the exam questions. The questions were lengthy and confusing, but not misleading if you remember to read them carefully, not panic and catch the keywords with ease. I did a first pass at the exam, answering all the questions I felt confident about, and then reviewed the other ones in the remaining time. I found Jayendra’s blog extremely helpful to understand the structure and list of topics covered in the exam.
After completing the exam, there’s a brief survey following which the result gets published. Google takes up to 10 days to confirm and send the official certificate via email.
What Next?
Having a certification is a waste if it’s not put to good use. It’s just the beginning of a long journey into the world of cloud, and a medium to grow. Use your skills to learn, teach and guide your friends, family and peers to leverage the advantages of Cloud. And keep learning, asking questions and growing!
Good luck !