Hello everyone, I am back with my another blog. This time it is about Google Cloud Professional Cloud Architect Certification .Last Month I passed the Google Cloud — Professional Cloud Architect exam. So, I am here to share my experience and guidance on how to prepare for it.

Table Of Contents

• Introduction
• Certification Details
• Certification Topics
• Learning Options
• System Test (Prior to Exam Day)
• On Certification Day
• Some tips…

Introduction

This certification tests with foundational knowledge of design, develop, and manage robust, secure, scalable, highly available and reliable solutions to drive business objectives in Google Cloud.

Certification Details

• Format: Multiple Select & Multiple Choice (Combination of case study & stand-alone questions)
• Exam Duration: 120 minutes
• Number of Questions: 50
• Passing Score: Pass/Fail — only feedback at end of exam. No score is given at the end.
• Registration Fee: $200 (plus tax where applicable)

Certification Topics

Exam Guide
Google provides official exam guide for PCA exam. I recommend you to go through it before proceeding further with the preparation.

Important Topics:
Google Cloud Identity and Access Management (IAM) is a service to implement granular or fine-grained security policies. It’s a comprehensive framework to secure any Google Cloud resource.

Know How to Move Data to Google Cloud

• Services included here are Transfer Appliance that is the fastest option when you need to securely move terabytes or petabytes of data to GCP. Both, Google and the customer team, participate in the migration process.
• If the customer needs to move large datasets directly to BigQuery, consider BigQuery Data Transfer Service.
• gsutil: gsutil tool is the standard tool for small- to medium-sized transfers (less than 1 TB) over a typical enterprise-scale network, from a private data center to Google Cloud.

Choose the Right Storage and Database Offerings

• Google Cloud offers wide variety of database and storage options. Understanding them in depth is what very important.

Understand the Case Studies thoroughly
Since these case studies are freely accessible, you can view them even before you sign up for the test. When reading the case studies, pay close attention to the details.

1. Terramearth
2. Mountkirk Games
3. EHR HealthCare
4. Helicopter Racing League

Find the links to these cases studies here.

Learning Options

According to my research none of the courses are there that covers all the concepts. You must have hands-on Google Cloud and understand

1. Google Learning path from Coursera
If followed in the same order, it gives you a very good understanding of different services that GCP provides and role of an architect in leveraging the services for building solutions.

• Google Cloud Platform Fundamentals: Core Infrastructure
• Essential Google Cloud Infrastructure: Foundation
• Essential Google Cloud Infrastructure: Core Services
• Elastic Google Cloud Infrastructure: Scaling and Automation
• Reliable Google Cloud Infrastructure: Design and Process
• Preparing for the Google Cloud Professional Cloud Architect Exam

2. GCP Professional Cloud Architect: Google Cloud Certification by Ranga Karanam on Udemy.

Claimed to be ONLY COURSE YOU NEED TO GET READY for Google Cloud (GCP) Certified Professional Cloud Architect Exam! This is a paid course on Udemy by Ranga Karanam, but it really gives a good understanding of most of the services and latest case studies that are very important when it comes to PCA exam. Link to the course

System Check(Prior to Exam day)

If you are going to give the exam remotely. Make sure to run a system check by visiting here. This Helps you know that if your system is compatible to taking the test or not.

On Certification Day

• Make sure you are giving the exam in a quiet environment with neat and clean workspace.
• You will have to show a Valid Identity proof while checking in for the exam.
• The certification will be open 10 minutes before the booked time and please be ready at least before 10 minutes so that you will be ready for the booked time after completing the admission process.
• Login: https://www.webassessor.com/googlecloud/
• Click on your exam under ‘My Assessments’
• Click “Launch” and proceed through the self check-in process and wait for a Proctor to connect with you
• If you face any issue during the exam, then please contact the Kryterion Technical Support through Live Chat: https://kryterion.force.com/support/s/contactsupport?language=en_US

Some Tips...

• Make sure you know the tradeoffs of the choices: For example:

1. Google Compute Engine vs. Google App Engine
2. Standard VMs. vs Preemptible VMs
3. Local SSD vs. SSD Persistent Disks
4. Global vs. Regional vs. Zonal resources

• Let's say you don't know the answer , what you can do is eliminate the wrong answers first. If you have some good knowledge and common sense, you can easily eliminate 2 options and after that try to answer from remaining 2 options. This strategy helped me a lot.

• Practice questions from examtopics.com. This website contains some previous questions of PCA Exam. This will surely help you. Remember all the answers here on this site are not accurate. Go to discussions to see which option is correct.

That's all from my side I wish you all the very best for your journey on learning Google cloud and clearing the exam!

Also if you have any queries or doubts regarding the exam feel free to reach me out on Linkedin.

Thank You for Reading!
Keep Learning , Keep Sharing🎯🎯