Google Professional Cloud Architect Certification — Resources for Preparation
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In my previous post, I touched upon the high-level expectation of the GCP Cloud Architect certification. As to make any journey comfortable, the important step is to plan out the logistics, resources, and tools; the same goes for any certification exam. This post will list the resources that have helped me make my certification journey enjoyable and smooth. And I will share my thought on how to use those resources to get the maximum benefit out of it.
Google Cloud has published a very comprehensive specialization course on Coursera, Cloud Architecture with Google Cloud Professional Certificate. This is the best resource to build the foundation of the concept. If you don’t want to invest in a Coursera course to start with or want to save money, you can start these courses in Audit mode, go through content. And while going through content, enroll for a free Google Cloud account and practice the concept. Once you are fully ready, go for a Coursera Paid subscription, which gives you seven days of free trials, which you can use to do the exercises and labs to build upon those concepts.
As in my previous post, we have seen that this certification is aimed to ensure that candidate —
A. understands the High-level concept of cloud architecture and
B. the services that Google offers to fulfill the needs of the cloud.
C. And then use those building blocks to design a robust, scalable, highly available, secure, and dynamic solution to achieve the business needs.
The Coursera course is broken down into six modules to covers these points:
1. Google Cloud Platform Fundamentals: Core Infrastructure
2. Essential Google Cloud Infrastructure: Foundation
3. Essential Google Cloud Infrastructure: Core Services
4. Elastic Google Cloud Infrastructure: Scaling and Automation
5. Reliable Google Cloud Infrastructure: Design and Process
6. Architecting with Google Kubernetes Engine: Foundations
The first two modules try to provide basic concepts of Cloud Fundamentals, third module captures the services provided by googles to meet the needs of Cloud users. The last three modules guides how the services are used to design scalable, robust solutions.
Another resource for practice is Examtopics, but I would recommend using this once you think you are ready for the exam and use it to test your understanding and validate your readiness.
In my next post, I will capture important nuggets on each concept which will attempt to build a big picture to help prepare for certification and be used as a cheat sheet; stay tuned!!!
