Google Cloud Professional Cloud Architect

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I have just recently completed the Google Cloud Professional Cloud Architect exam for the renewal. It's crazy that the two years is already up and time to re certify! Please find some below information on this exam as well as study resources and a guide on being able to tackle this certification.

Firstly, I have to say that after completing the exam two years ago in 2018 a lot has changed in the Google Cloud landscape in 2020. It's absolutely vital to update these exams every two years in order to keep up with the rapid innovation and release of new features and products by Google Cloud!

About the exam

Two years ago there were only two Google Cloud certifications available, the Professional Cloud Architect and the Data Engineer. Now with the release of numerous new role based certifications it has become a bit easier to certify on the track that represents your job role a bit better. However the Professional Cloud Architect still represents the high level solutions architect approach to GCP.

I suggest you have a look at all the various Google Cloud exams as it may be best suited to start with the Cloud Engineer if you are looking at beginning or starting on the cloud infrastructure track.
https://cloud.google.com/certification

In my personal opinion this is still the most vital and valuable cloud solutions architect exam available in the market currently, and will continue to be so for quite some time. The reason? It's really due to the innovation that Google is investing in their cloud platform. The growth in the platform in just two years has been impressive and many enterprises are investigating migration or are in the process of migrating into the platform. The Professional Cloud Architect is also still rated as the highest paid certification in the market currently. Please view the link below:

https://www.globalknowledge.com/us-en/resources/resource-library/articles/top-paying-certifications/

Study Resources

The exam itself is not an easy one unfortunately and Google does strive to keep a very high standard on the certifications on the exam. It encompasses both the design and implementation of cloud architecture. The Professional Cloud Architect exam assesses your ability to:

- Design and plan a cloud solution architecture
- Manage and provision the cloud solution infrastructure
- Design for security and compliance
- Analyze and optimize technical and business processes
- Manage implementations of cloud architecture
- Ensure solution and operations reliability

The exam is delivered on a high level knowledge of solution architecture, for example in trying to identify the best solutions and services to map to organisation requirements and migrations.  By going through and reading the official exam guide it will give you a good idea of the scope that the exam encompasses which is really large. https://cloud.google.com/certification/guides/cloud-architect

However this exam also deep dives into technical skills across the products and tests your knowledge of actually understanding the integration of the services as well as infrastructure management.

I have outlined some study resources below that I have used personally for this exam. My advice is to read through the official guides first in order to get an understanding of the requirements. The second step is to hit the labs really hard. Unless you have a great deal of experience using GCP you are really going to need to do the labs as it's absolutely vital to get the hand on experience of GCP. Qwiklabs is the best place to do this and please find some links below to some relevant Qwiklabs content.

https://google.qwiklabs.com/courses/1070?utm_source=gcp&utm_medium=site&utm_campaign=certification

https://google.qwiklabs.com/courses/879&utm_source=cloud-dot-google&utm_medium=website

I also find that a really good training resource is using Youtube and watching all the past Google Cloud Next 19 sessions on the various GCP products and resources. This can give you some really useful information and help you prepare on areas you are unsure of. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XGrlWVWlpgE&list=PLIivdWyY5sqIXvUGVrFuZibCUdKVzEoUw

Please find some links to official study guides and further information:

Study links:
https://cloud.google.com/certification/cloud-architect

Exam Guide:
https://cloud.google.com/certification/guides/cloud-architect

Google also offers a free practise test on their website which is really helpful to judge your study progress and whether you are ready to take the exam or should spend some more time preparing:

Practise Exam:
https://cloud.google.com/certification/practice-exam/cloud-architect

One nice thing about the exam is that Google gives you all the applicable case studies on their website which really helps you to plan and map out the various GCP service requirements:

The case studies for the exam are available online:
https://cloud.google.com/certification/guides/cloud-architect/casestudy-mountkirkgames-rev2
https://cloud.google.com/certification/guides/cloud-architect/casestudy-dress4win-rev2
https://cloud.google.com/certification/guides/cloud-architect/casestudy-terramearth-rev2

Another great resource for learning on GCP is the Google Cloud documentation, this is a really great place to read up on services and gain more understanding on specific technical requirements.

https://cloud.google.com/docs

Google Cloud also offers classroom training sessions which are a great way to introduce you to the platform at any level and have an instructor guide you through GCP by using a delivery of slides as well as hands on labs in order build of your real world skills on the platform.
https://cloud.google.com/training/courses

This exam will take a lot of time to prepare for, but this time is really a great investment and it will be a really great learning experience in order to further your career and cloud skill development.

Good luck!

Google Cloud Platform