How to become a Google Cloud Certified Professional Cloud Architect

In this post I'll be giving tips on how to prepare for Google Cloud Certified Professional Cloud Architect exam. This will also be helpful for people who are currently working on other cloud platforms like AWS or Azure and looking for broadening their skills to Google Cloud Platform (GCP).

As many of you who are following this blog knows that I am already working on AWS and Azure. About a couple of years back we got heavily into Kubernetes. Being a curious techie when I started digging further about Kubernetes, I found that it was initially designed by Google. One thing led to another and I ended up exploring more about google cloud. In parallel, we started getting traction on multi-cloud strategy and GCP is also considered a good option with many features which are helpful for both startups and big Enterprises.

So, I decided to get more knowledge and expertise on Google Cloud. When I compared AWS with GCP I felt that most of the technologies are similar but obviously with different naming convention and some technical setting differences. Thus, if you have worked on AWS it won't be very difficult to grasp the Google Cloud as well. But even if you don't have background in other clouds then also learning about google cloud is not very difficult, you just need to spend extra time on the basics.

If, you are from AWS background you can get a good comparison of AWS and GCP services here and that's what I did as a starting point.

Next I went through the Udemy course Google Cloud (GCP) 2020: Zero to Cloud Architect. This course covers the GCP services in detail starting from basics. So, it is useful even for someone who is starting from scratch.

Since our company is a partner of Google so, I supplemented my preparation by enrolling in the online training labs of QWIKLABS. These labs are really helpful in getting you good hands-on practice on the various GCP services.

AWS background folks will find that the GCP services are not very different but it still has some differences for e.g. in AWS a subnet is restricted to an AZ but in GCP the subnet can span to multiple AZs in a region. You have to keep these subtle differences in mind when designing in GCP.

If we talk specifically about the certification exam it mainly focuses on below topics:-

• Managing and provisioning cloud infrastructure.
• Designing and planning a cloud solution which is scalable, resilient and cost effective.
• Security strengthening using IAM, Firewall, Security Groups etc.
• Analyzing and Monitoring the application behavior using GCP Operations Suite.
• Managing HA and DR.

The exam is in multiple choice questions format. You will also get 2-3 case studies and you have to select an answer which is most suitable considering the scenario mentioned in case study. 

You can choose to appear for an exam at the test center or go for an online proctored exam from home. Considering the Corona situation I appeared for an online proctored exam. You just have to follow the guidelines mentioned in the link I have shared above and with good internet connection it is pretty easy to appear for the exam from home.

Overall I found the exam to be very engaging covering wide ranging of topics.

If you have any queries regarding the exam preparation or GCP in general please post them in the comment section below.