Journey of Google Cloud Professional Cloud Architect Exam
Tags: googlecloudplatfor
Published: 2020-04-09 08:34:08

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title: Journey of Google Cloud Professional Cloud Architect Exam
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date: 2019-12-12 05:10:43 UTC
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![](https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/400/1*LNZ6muhckR5k7G1xzSQ4lA.png)

Learning something new is always great. Initially this certification was not my goal. I was learning GCP to know different services it provides specially for hosting and Image processing for my project written in Angular and Java. Later I came to know about the certification and then though to get the Certification done.

I am writing this post to share my journey of getting certified in Google Cloud Architect and material that I found helpful. I hope this post will be useful for me later or others who are interested in this certification.

### Exam Details

Exam Guide: Official exam guide link is here [https://cloud.google.com/certification/guides/professional-cloud-architect/](https://cloud.google.com/certification/guides/professional-cloud-architect/)  
Exam consists of 50 multiple choice questions.  
Total Duration is 120 Minutes  
Exam registration can be scheduled via WebAssessor  
I got the exam result after 2 days via email.

### Learning GCP In General

Since I was totally new to GCP I found the following courses from coursera very useful. The first course is good specially if new to GCP. The second course is about Networking in details with many hands-on labs.

Coursera GCP Architecture  
[https://www.coursera.org/specializations/gcp-architecture](https://www.coursera.org/specializations/gcp-architecture)

Coursera Networking Google Cloud Platform  
[https://www.coursera.org/specializations/networking-google-cloud-platform](https://www.coursera.org/specializations/networking-google-cloud-platform)

I also signed up for Google Cloud platform and took advantage of the 300 Usd credit to try and learn different products.

### Preparation For the Exam

GCP is vast and it is getting more and more product and services.   
Exam covers a lot of product and offerings from GCP but not all. Some of them goes deeper which needs good understanding of the product and when/how to use it. There are also questions which touches at surface level, for them having a over all idea is good to choose correct answer.

#### **Understanding in Depth**

**Case Studies**  : Know the official case studies and prepare a solution. A lot of questions are asked from the case studies. Going though them before the exam would be helpful.

**IAM and Billing** : Good understanding of IAM, ACL etc, best practices etc, BigQuery IAM.

**Cloud Storage** : In-depth knowledge about Cloud storage, storage classes, Lifecycle management, How to delete/change storage class.

**Compute Engine** : Details about compute engine, Snapshots/Images and how to create vm from them. Preemptible VMs, Shielded VM’s. Now we also have Cloud GPU.

**App Engine:** Standard vs Flexible.

**GKE and Kubernetes** : Difference between GKE, Kubernetes, Creating cluster, common K8 commands. Nodes, Pods vs Containers etc. Minimum number of nodes/vms.

**Encryption/Security with GCP**  : Knowledge of CMEK, CSEK, Encryption for Cloud Storage/Bucket etc.

**Multi cloud connectivity :** Peering, Direct Connect, VPN etc. Usecases when to choose one. Like VPN provides encryption, but for speed Cloud inter connect is better. Also what is the SLA?

**VPC** : Networking knowledge in depth, GCP provide a number of options/solutions for network design, Shared VPC etc.

**Load Balancing**   
Different kind of LB’s available in GCP

**Bigtable** : It is proprietary NOSQL database, understanding when to use it and best practices.

**BigQuery** : When to use BigQuery, best practices, Indexes etc.

**Cloud SQL** : It is managed Relational Databases, understanding different offerings, configuring replica. Different products available as part of Cloud SQL.

**Stack Driver**  
[https://cloud.google.com/stackdriver/](https://cloud.google.com/stackdriver/)

**Cloud Datastore** : In-depth knowledge about Cloud datastore. How to create index. Google recently added two different mode Datastore mode and native mode.

**Disaster Recovery :** Design principal for disaster recovery in GCP, different kinds of replicas.

**Cloud Pub/Sub:** Understanding how and when to best use pubsub.  
[https://cloud.google.com/functions/docs/tutorials/pubsub](https://cloud.google.com/functions/docs/tutorials/pubsub)

**Deployment Manger**   
For the exam deployment manager is an important topic, understanding what it does and how to configure it would be good. Like Templating, CLI commands.

**Different kinds of Deployments**  
General concepts like Canary deployment, Rolling deployment, Blue/Green Deployment, A/B Testing would be good to know.

### **Other topics that needs to be familiar with**

**Transfer Appliance and Data Rehydration**   
[https://cloud.google.com/transfer-appliance/](https://cloud.google.com/transfer-appliance/)

**Datalab**  
[https://cloud.google.com/datalab/](https://cloud.google.com/datalab/)

**Dataproc:** It is GCP Managed Apache Spark and Apache Hadoop  
[https://cloud.google.com/dataproc/](https://cloud.google.com/dataproc/)

**Cloud DataFlow**  : It is based on Apace Beam SDK

**Cloud Composer** : It is based on Apace Air Flow

**Cloud Armour**  
[https://cloud.google.com/armor/](https://cloud.google.com/armor/)

**Data Loss Prevention API**  . How to classify and mask sensitive data.  
[https://cloud.google.com/dlp/](https://cloud.google.com/dlp/)

**Compliance**  : Design for compliance PCI, HIPPA etc

**Cloud Functions :** Understanding of how cloud functions works.  
[https://cloud.google.com/functions/features/](https://cloud.google.com/functions/features/)

**Jenkins**  
[https://jenkins.io/](https://jenkins.io/)

**Spinnaker**   
spinnaker.io

**Cloud Build**  
[https://cloud.google.com/cloud-build/](https://cloud.google.com/cloud-build/)

**Cloud Run**  
[https://cloud.google.com/run/](https://cloud.google.com/run/)

**Cloud identity aware proxy**  
[https://cloud.google.com/iap/](https://cloud.google.com/iap/)

**Cloud sql proxy**  
[https://cloud.google.com/sql/docs/mysql/sql-proxy](https://cloud.google.com/sql/docs/mysql/sql-proxy)

**Marketplace**  
It is like App Store for GCP. Look into marketplace in GCP Console  
[https://cloud.google.com/marketplace/](https://cloud.google.com/marketplace/)

**Cloud Directory Sync**  
We can sync with LDAP, reading about this service on GCP would be good enough.

**Tools and Skd**  
Understanding and uses of bq, Cloud Shell, Gsutil, kubectl, gcloud etc.

### Links to some materials for the exam

**Best practices for IAM**  
https://cloud.google.com/docs/enterprise/best-practices-for-enterprise-organizations

**A GCP flowchart a day**  : Good to review how to choose right services  
[https://medium.com/google-cloud/a-gcp-flowchart-a-day-2d57cc109401](https://medium.com/google-cloud/a-gcp-flowchart-a-day-2d57cc109401)

**Sample Solution** : Following is a sample solution on GCP site, they provide various other architectural solutions which are good to validate the concepts  
[https://cloud.google.com/solutions/migrating-a-two-tier-web-app-to-gcp](https://cloud.google.com/solutions/migrating-a-two-tier-web-app-to-gcp)

**Sample Case studies**

- [Mountkirk Games](https://cloud.google.com/certification/guides/cloud-architect/casestudy-mountkirkgames-rev2/)
- [Dress4Win](https://cloud.google.com/certification/guides/cloud-architect/casestudy-dress4win-rev2/)
- [TerramEarth](https://cloud.google.com/certification/guides/cloud-architect/casestudy-terramearth-rev2/)

Coursera also host a certification preparation course. I did not get much time to complete the full course. But going though the sample case studies would be a good addition to validate own solution.  
[https://www.coursera.org/learn/preparing-cloud-professional-cloud-architect-exam](https://www.coursera.org/learn/preparing-cloud-professional-cloud-architect-exam)

### Summary

Areas like Compute Engine, Networking, Billing, AIM, Databases, Tools for Analytics etc. are very important. For them we need good understanding of the different options available while architecting a good solution or choosing the appropriate answer in the exam. Apart from that having a good knowledge of the other product/services will be helpful to answer properly.

I took notes so that before the exam i can go over them which is otherwise easy to forget.

Like which products are regional/zonal  
Choosing network design for speed requirements.   
Different database for capacity, transaction etc.  
Network capacities.  
Compute engine options.  
Cloud Datastore options.