GCP Professional Cloud Architect Certification Path

~ Last updated on : ~ jayendrapatil
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Google Cloud – Professional Cloud Architect Certification Learning Path
Google Cloud – Professional Cloud Architect Certification Summary
Google Cloud – Professional Cloud Architect Exam Updates (October 2025 – v6.1)
Google Cloud – Professional Cloud Architect Certification Resources
Google Cloud – Professional Cloud Architect Certification Topics

Google Cloud – Professional Cloud Architect Certification Learning Path

🔄 Last Updated: June 2026 — This post has been updated to reflect the new PCA exam format (v6.1, released October 30, 2025), new case studies, AI/ML content additions, service rebrandings, and the transition to Pearson as exam delivery provider (March 2026).

Re-certified !!!! Google Cloud – Professional Cloud Architect certification exam is one of the toughest exam I have appeared for. Even though it was recertification, the preparation level was same as the first one. The gamut of services and concepts it tests your knowledge on is really vast.

Google Cloud – Professional Cloud Architect Certification Summary

  • Has 50 questions to be answered in 2 hours.
  • Registration fee is $200 (plus tax where applicable).
  • Covers wide range of Google Cloud services and what they actually do.
  • includes Compute, Storage, Network, Data services, and now AI/ML services (Vertex AI, Gemini)
  • The exam was significantly updated in October 2025 (v6.1) to include the Google Cloud Well-Architected Framework and AI/ML integration topics.
  • Questions sometimes tests your logical thinking rather than any concept regarding Google Cloud.
  • Hands-on is a MUST, if you have not worked on GCP before make sure you do lots of labs else you would be absolute clueless for some of the questions and commands
  • Make sure you cover the case studies before hand. The exam includes ~15 questions based on case studies and it can really be a savior for you in the exams.
  • Be sure that NO Online Course or Practice tests is going to cover all. Hands-on or practical knowledge is MUST.
  • Exam Delivery: As of March 2026, exams are delivered through Pearson VUE (previously Kryterion). Exams can be taken onsite at test centers or remotely.

Google Cloud – Professional Cloud Architect Exam Updates (October 2025 – v6.1)

  • AI Content Expansion: Two new sections (2.4, 2.5) focused on Vertex AI, including AutoML, custom training, and model deployment.
  • Well-Architected Framework: Now required knowledge; questions focus on operational excellence, security, reliability, cost optimization, and performance pillars.
  • New Case Studies: EHR Healthcare retained; three new scenarios added — Altostrat Media, Cymbal Retail, and KnightMotives Automotive (all with AI integration).
  • ~30% new topics compared to the previous version; some older topics have been deprioritized.
  • Service Rebrandings: Be aware of Dataproc → Managed Service for Apache Spark, Cloud Functions → Cloud Run functions, Container Registry → Artifact Registry.

Google Cloud – Professional Cloud Architect Certification Resources

Google Cloud – Professional Cloud Architect Certification Topics

General Services

  • Cloud Billing
    • understand how Cloud Billing works. Monthly vs Threshold and which has priority
    • Budgets can be set to alert for projects
    • how to change a billing account for a project and what roles you need. Hint – Project Owner and Billing Administrator for the billing account
    • Cloud Billing can be exported to BigQuery and Cloud Storage
  • Resource Manager
    • Understand Resource Manager the hierarchy Organization -> Folders -> Projects -> Resources
    • IAM Policy inheritance is transitive and resources inherit the policies of all of their parent resources.
    • Effective policy for a resource is the union of the policy set on that resource and the policies inherited from higher up in the hierarchy.

Identity Services

  • Cloud Identity and Access Management
    • Identify and Access Management – IAM provides administrators the ability to manage cloud resources centrally by controlling who can take what action on specific resources.
    • Understand how IAM works and how rules apply esp. the hierarchy from Organization -> Folder -> Project -> Resources
    • Understand the difference between Basic (formerly Primitive), Pre-defined and Custom roles and their use cases
    • IAM Policy inheritance is transitive and resources inherit the policies of all of their parent resources.
    • Effective policy for a resource is the union of the policy set on that resource and the policies inherited from higher up in the hierarchy.
    • Basically Permissions -> Roles -> (IAM Policy) -> Members (Principals)
    • Know how to use service accounts with applications
    • Understand IAM Conditions for fine-grained, attribute-based access control
    • Understand IAM Deny Policies to set guardrails on access
  • Cloud Identity
    • Cloud Identity provides IDaaS (Identity as a Service) and provides single sign-on functionality and federation with external identity provides like Active Directory.
    • Cloud Identity supports federating with Active Directory using GCDS to implement the synchronization

Compute Services

    • Make sure you know all the compute services Google Compute Engine, Google App Engine, Google Kubernetes Engine, and Cloud Run. You need to be sure to know the pros and cons and the use cases that you should use them.
    • Google Compute Engine
      • Google Compute Engine is the best IaaS option for compute and provides fine grained control
      • Know how to create a Compute Engine instance, connect to it using Cloud shell or ssh keys
      • Difference between backups and images and how to create instances from the same.
      • Understand Compute Engine Storage Options. Disk throughput and IOPS depends on type and size.
      • Understand Compute Engine Snapshots
      • Instance templates with managed instance groups provide scalability and high availability
      • Instance template cannot be edited, create a new one and attach.
      • Difference between managed vs unmanaged instance groups and auto-healing feature
      • Managed instance groups are covered heavily the exam, as they provide the key auto-scaling capability. Hint: you need to create an Instance template and associate it with Instance group
      • Understand how migration or traffic splitting with Managed instance groups works Hint – rolling updates & deployments
      • Spot VMs (previously known as Preemptible VMs) and their use cases. HINT – can be terminated any time when Compute Engine needs the resources. Spot VMs no longer have the 24-hour maximum lifetime limitation that Preemptible VMs had.
      • Upgrade an instance without downtime using Live Migration
      • Managing access using OS Login or project and instance metadata
      • Prevent accidental deletion using deletion protection flag
      • Understand the pricing and discounts model Hint – Sustained (automatic up to 30%) vs Committed (1 to 3 yrs) discounts.
      • In case of any issues or errors, how to debug the same
    • Google App Engine
      • Google App Engine is mainly the best option for PaaS with platforms supported and features provided.
      • Deploy an application with App Engine and understand how versioning and rolling deployments can be done
      • Understand how to keep auto scaling and traffic splitting and migration.
      • Know App Engine is a regional resource and understand the steps to migrate or deploy application to different region and project.
      • Know the difference between App Engine Flexible vs Standard
    • Google Kubernetes Engine
      • Google Kubernetes Engine, powered by the open source container scheduler Kubernetes, enables you to run containers on Google Cloud Platform.
      • Kubernetes Engine takes care of provisioning and maintaining the underlying virtual machine cluster, scaling your application, and operational logistics such as logging, monitoring, and cluster health management.
      • A node pool is a subset of machines that all have the same configuration, including machine type (CPU and memory) authorization scopes. Node pools represent a subset of nodes within a cluster; a container cluster can contain one or more node pools. Hint : For adding new machine types, need to add a new node pool as existing one cannot be edited
      • Be sure to Create a Kubernetes Cluster and configure it to host an application
      • Understand how to make the cluster auto repairable and upgradable. Hint – Node auto-upgrades and auto-repairing feature
      • Very important to understand where to use gcloud commands (to create a cluster) and kubectl commands (manage the cluster components)
      • Very important to understand how to increase cluster size and enable autoscaling for the cluster
      • Know how to manage secrets like database passwords
      • Understand GKE Autopilot mode — a fully managed mode where Google manages the nodes, scaling, and security
    • Cloud Run
      • Cloud Run is a fully managed serverless platform for deploying and running containerized applications.
      • Supports any language or library as long as it can be containerized.
      • Scales automatically from zero to many instances and back to zero.
      • Supports both services (request-driven) and jobs (task-based workloads).
      • Cloud Run is now the unified serverless platform — Cloud Functions has been rebranded as Cloud Run functions.
    • Cloud Run functions (formerly Cloud Functions)
      • is a lightweight, event-based, asynchronous compute solution that allows you to create small, single-purpose functions that respond to cloud events without the need to manage a server or a runtime environment.
      • Remember that Cloud Run functions is serverless and scales from zero to scale and back to zero as the demand changes.
      • 2nd gen functions (recommended for new projects) are built on Cloud Run infrastructure and offer improved performance, concurrency, longer request processing (up to 60 minutes), and Eventarc integration.

Network Services

  • Virtual Private Cloud
    • Understand Virtual Private Cloud (VPC), subnets and host applications within them Hint VPC spans across region
    • Understand how Firewall rules works and how they are configured. Hint – Focus on Network Tags. Also, there are 2 implicit firewall rules – default ingress deny and default egress allow
    • Understand VPC Peering and Shared VPC
    • Understand the concept internal and external IPs and difference between static and ephemeral IPs
    • Primary IP range of an existing subnet can be expanded by modifying its subnet mask, setting the prefix length to a smaller number.
    • Understand Private Google Access and Private Service Connect use cases
  • On-premises connectivity
    • Cloud VPN and Cloud Interconnect are 2 components which help you connect to on-premises data center.
    • Understand HA VPN (recommended) vs Classic VPN. Note: Classic VPN dynamic routing via BGP is deprecated as of August 2025 — use HA VPN for BGP.
    • Understand what are the requirements to setup Cloud VPN.
    • Cloud Router provides dynamic routing using BGP
    • Know Interconnect as the reliable high speed, low latency and dedicated bandwidth options (Dedicated Interconnect and Partner Interconnect).
    • Cross-Cloud Interconnect — provides dedicated, high-bandwidth connectivity between Google Cloud and other cloud providers (e.g., AWS, Azure) without traversing the public internet.
    • Network Connectivity Center — a centralized hub for managing hybrid and multi-cloud network connectivity, connecting on-premises, Google Cloud, and other cloud networks through spokes.
  • Cloud Load Balancing (GCLB)
    • Google Cloud Load Balancing provides scaling, high availability, and traffic management for your internet-facing and private applications.
    • Understand Google Load Balancing options and their use cases esp. which is global and internal and what protocols they support.

Storage Services

  • Understand each Storage Options and use cases.
  • Persistent disks
    • attached to the Compute Engines, provide fast access however are limited in scalability, availability and scope.
    • Remember performance depends on the size of the disk
  • Cloud Storage
    • Cloud Storage is cost-effective object storage for unstructured data.
    • very important to know the different storage classes and their use cases: Standard (frequent access, replaces the legacy Regional/Multi-Regional classes), Nearline (30-day minimum, monthly access), Coldline (90-day minimum, quarterly access), and Archive (365-day minimum, yearly access)
    • Understand life cycle management. HINT – Changes are in accordance to object creation date
    • Understand various data encryption techniques
    • Understand Signed URL to give temporary access and the users do not need to be GCP users
    • Understand access control and permissions – IAM vs ACLs (fine grained control). Note: Uniform bucket-level access is now the recommended default.
    • Understand best practices esp. uploading and downloading the data. HINT using parallel composite uploads
  • Relational Databases
    • Know Cloud SQL, Cloud Spanner, and AlloyDB for PostgreSQL
    • Cloud SQL
      • Cloud SQL is a fully-managed service that provides MySQL, PostgreSQL and MS SQL Server
      • Supports up to 64TB of storage.
      • Difference between Failover and Read replicas. Failover provides High Availability and almost zero downtime while Read replicas provide scalability. Cross region Read Replicas are supported
      • Perform Point-In-Time recovery. Hint – requires binary logging and backups
      • Cloud SQL Enterprise Plus edition provides near-zero downtime maintenance and advanced HA features
    • Cloud Spanner
      • is a fully managed, mission-critical relational database service.
      • provides a scalable online transaction processing (OLTP) database with high availability and strong consistency at global scale.
      • globally distributed and can scale horizontally.
      • not a direct replacement for Cloud SQL and would need migration
    • AlloyDB for PostgreSQL
      • Fully managed, PostgreSQL-compatible database designed for demanding enterprise workloads.
      • Up to 4x faster for transactional workloads and up to 100x faster for analytical queries compared to standard PostgreSQL.
      • Provides automatic storage scaling, integrated AI/ML capabilities with built-in Vertex AI integration.
      • Best for enterprise PostgreSQL workloads that need high performance and availability.
  • NoSQL
    • Know Firestore and Bigtable
    • Firestore (successor to Cloud Datastore)
      • Firestore operates in two modes: Native mode (real-time, mobile/web apps) and Datastore mode (server-side, backward compatible with legacy Datastore)
      • Provides document database for web and mobile applications. Not for analytics.
      • Understand Firestore indexes and how to update indexes
      • Can be configured Multi-regional and regional
    • Bigtable
      • provides column database suitable for both low-latency single-point lookups and precalculated analytics
      • understand Bigtable is suitable for high-throughput workloads like IoT, time-series, and analytics
  • Data Warehousing
    • BigQuery
      • provides scalable, fully managed enterprise data warehouse (EDW) with SQL and fast ad-hoc queries.
      • Remember it is most suitable for historical analysis.
      • Now includes BigQuery ML for running ML models directly in SQL, and BigQuery Studio for unified analytics.
  • Memorystore and Firebase are now more commonly tested; understand Memorystore for Redis/Memcached caching use cases.

Data Services

  • Although there is a different certification for Data Engineer, the Cloud Architect does cover data services. Data services are also part of the use cases so be sure to know about them
  • Know the Big Data stack and understand which service fits the different layers of ingest, store, process, analytics, use
  • Key Services which need to be mainly covered are –
    • Cloud Storage as the medium to store data as data lake
    • Pub/Sub
      • as the messaging service to capture real time data esp. IoT
      • is designed to provide reliable, many-to-many, asynchronous messaging between applications esp. real time IoT data capture
      • Cloud Storage can generate notifications via Pub/Sub
    • Dataflow to process, transform, transfer data and the key service to integrate store and analytics. Now supports ML inference directly in pipelines (RunInference) and TPU integration.
    • BigQuery for storage and analytics. Remember BigQuery provides the same cost-effective option for storage as Cloud Storage
    • Managed Service for Apache Spark (formerly Cloud Dataproc) to handle existing Hadoop/Spark jobs. Hint – Use it to replace existing hadoop infra. Now includes serverless Spark option (no cluster management needed).
    • Dataform for managing SQL-based data transformation pipelines in BigQuery (replaces the need for Cloud Dataprep in many scenarios)
  • Know standard patterns Pub/Sub -> Dataflow -> BigQuery

AI and Machine Learning Services (NEW for PCA v6.1)

  • The updated PCA exam includes significant AI/ML content. Key services to know:
  • Vertex AI
    • Google Cloud’s unified AI/ML platform for building, deploying, and scaling ML models
    • Understand AutoML (no-code/low-code model training) vs Custom Training (bring your own code)
    • Understand Vertex AI Workbench (managed notebooks, replacement for Cloud Datalab)
    • Model deployment to endpoints with online/batch prediction
    • Vertex AI Feature Store for managing ML features
    • Vertex Explainable AI for model interpretability
  • Gemini
    • Google’s multimodal AI model family, available through Vertex AI
    • Understand use cases for generative AI in architecture (content generation, code assistance, data analysis)
  • Pre-trained APIs
    • Vision AI, Natural Language AI, Translation AI, Speech-to-Text, Text-to-Speech
    • Know when to use pre-trained APIs vs AutoML vs custom training

Monitoring

  • Google Cloud Monitoring (formerly Stackdriver)
    • provides everything from monitoring, alert, error reporting, metrics, diagnostics, debugging, trace.
    • remember audits are mainly checking Cloud Audit Logs
  • Google Cloud Logging (formerly Stackdriver Logging)
    • Understand log routing, sinks, and log-based metrics
    • Know log retention periods and where to export for long-term storage
  • Cloud Trace — distributed tracing for latency analysis
  • Error Reporting — aggregates and displays errors from cloud services

DevOps services

  • Infrastructure as Code
    • Infrastructure Manager (Terraform-based) — Google Cloud’s recommended IaC service
    • Terraform — the industry standard for multi-cloud IaC, fully supported on Google Cloud
    • Deployment Manager — Deprecated (support discontinued March 31, 2026). Migrate to Infrastructure Manager or Terraform.
  • Source Code Management
    • Secure Source Manager — regionally deployed, managed source code repository on Google Cloud
    • Cloud Source Repositories — End of sale since June 2024; not available to new customers. Use Secure Source Manager, GitHub, or GitLab.
  • Artifact Registry
    • is the universal package manager for all build artifacts and dependencies (Docker images, language packages, OS packages).
    • Container Registry — Shut down March 18, 2025. All container image storage has migrated to Artifact Registry.
  • Cloud Build
    • is a service that executes your builds on Google Cloud Platform infrastructure.
    • Supports CI/CD pipelines with triggers from source repositories.
  • Cloud Deploy
    • Managed continuous delivery service for deploying to GKE, Cloud Run, and Anthos.
  • MarketPlace (Cloud Launcher)
    • provides a way to launch common software packages e.g. Jenkins or WordPress and stacks on Google Compute Engine with just a few clicks like a prepackaged solution.
    • can help minimize deployment time and can be used without any knowledge about the product

Security Services

  • Web Security Scanner (formerly Cloud Security Scanner)
    • is a web application security scanner that enables developers to easily check for a subset of common web application vulnerabilities in websites built on App Engine, GKE, and Compute Engine.
  • Cloud DLP (Sensitive Data Protection)
    • to handle sensitive data esp. redaction of PII data. Rebranded as Sensitive Data Protection.
  • Security Command Center (SCC)
    • Centralized security and risk management platform for Google Cloud resources.
    • Provides asset discovery, threat detection, and compliance monitoring.
  • Cloud Armor
    • DDoS protection and WAF (Web Application Firewall) for applications behind Load Balancers.
  • VPC Service Controls
    • Creates security perimeters around Google Cloud resources to prevent data exfiltration.
  • PCI-DSS compliant
    • GCP services are PCI-DSS compliant, however you need to make sure for the applications and hosting to be inline with PCI-DSS requirements
  • Same concept as PCI-DSS applies to GDPR as well

Google Cloud Well-Architected Framework (NEW for PCA v6.1)

  • The Well-Architected Framework is now required knowledge for the PCA exam.
  • Understand the six pillars:
    • Operational Excellence — monitoring, incident management, deployment practices
    • Security, Privacy, and Compliance — identity, data protection, network security
    • Reliability — high availability, disaster recovery, fault tolerance
    • Cost Optimization — resource efficiency, committed use discounts, rightsizing
    • Performance Optimization — scaling, caching, optimizing resources
    • Sustainability — efficient use of resources, carbon-aware workloads
  • Includes an AI and ML perspective covering design principles for AI workloads on Google Cloud.

Other Services

  • Know various data transfer options
  • Storage Transfer Service
    • allows import of large amounts of online data into Google Cloud Storage, quickly and cost-effectively.
    • Online data is the key here as it supports AWS S3, Azure Blob Storage, HTTP/HTTPS and other GCS buckets.
    • for on-premises data you can use the Storage Transfer Service agent or gsutil command
  • Transfer Appliance
    • to transfer large amounts of data quickly and cost-effectively into Google Cloud Platform.
    • Check for the data size and it would be always compared with Storage Transfer Service or gsutil commands.

Case Studies

  • The PCA exam was updated in October 2025 with new case studies. The current case studies are:
    • EHR Healthcare — electronic health record provider migrating to Google Cloud for scalability and disaster recovery
    • Altostrat Media — media company with AI integration requirements
    • Cymbal Retail — online retailer modernizing operations with conversational commerce and AI
    • KnightMotives Automotive — automotive company with AI-driven use cases
  • All new case studies emphasize AI/ML integration in architecture decisions.
  • Note: The previous case studies (Mountkirk Games, Dress4Win, TerramEarth) are no longer part of the exam.

113 thoughts on “GCP Professional Cloud Architect Certification Path”

          1. This is very informative piece here. @Jayendra – Do you have similar learning path for Data engineer exam as well?

  3. Does BrainCert have practice tests for GOOGLE CLOUD CERTIFIED Associate Cloud Engineer exam?

      1. Hi Jayendra: How much time of preparation is needed roughly.. i am already a aws solution architect associate certified.

        1. Google Professional is inline with AWS Solution Architect – Professional. It took me around 2 months to prepare for it with roughly 2 hrs per day. So plan accordingly.

          1. I need some help on GCP architect challenge .Could you please help me on this

  4. Thank you for this valuable summary. Your continued work to help others in their Cloud training and certification quests is very much appreciated.
    regards
    Allan

  5. Thanks Jayendra! I have planned my certification for next month and been preparing since two months. How much % of questions could we expect from Braincert or is it just a practicing site?

    1. Hi GP, from a conceptual front you should expect a coverage of data 70% or more. The questions are not as is, so you need to be sure you get your concepts right.

  6. Hi Jayendra, In total how many questions were asked in the exam? Was 2 hrs sufficient for the exam?

    1. AWS has a larger market and is more matured than Azure and GCP. Also in my experience AWS have lot of jobs.

  8. Jayendra
    I have cleared all 3 google cloud certifications. I got completely new set of questions and I saw only 2 or 3 similar questions like braincert or practice questions we reviewed over e-mail. As I have cleared the google data engineer certification, i would like complete AWS Big Specialty certification. Can you suggest good course like Linux Academy or Cloud Guru or cloud academy along with good practice questions

    1. Thats great .. Congrats Raghavarao.
      I am not surprised as it seems Google question bank is quite vast and they keep on updating. For Big Data both are good, so you can check on either.

    1. Hi Ilan, Google does not disclose the passing %. However, given my experience above 70% confident is for sure to pass the exams 🙂

  11. I want to buy google cloud professional architect practice tests. have you looked at udemy as well as braincert? braincert is Rs.1700 but 250 Qs. Udemy is for Rs700 125Qs.

    1. As far as I know, Braincert are Superset of Udemy and always have more and latest content as udemy.

      1. Hi Jayendra, I attempted exam last week but was unable to pass. Could you please provide me the dumps which you have.

  13. Hi,

    Last week i have cleared Google Cloud Professional Architect Exam.

    Braincert Practice tests papers helped a lot.

  14. Hi JP, Are there are pre-requisites in terms of other certifications before one can go for GCP Architect?
    I do not have any certification in cloud but have been working on GCP for last 1 year

    1. Absolutely Nothing, I appeared directly to GCP Professional Cloud Architect with a bit of working knowledge. Working knowledge would be a great help.

  15. Hi Jayendra,

    I have attempted for exam las week but unable to pass the exam, could you help in providing some instructions to pass the exam. Is Braincert have the similar pattern of questions which gets in exam? Please help

    1. Hi Maroju, Braincert have a similar pattern to the actual exams and can be useful.

  16. Thank you.. I have noted all the questions which I got in the exam .. could you please help me in reviewing them ..

    1. sure, you can reach me directly through the contact page and we can check further.

    2. Hi Maroju,
      If possible can you send me the questions you have noted down at ishaansutaria AT gmail dOT com

    3. Hi Maroju can you please send me the questions on gauravmalhotra66 at gmail dot com.
      appreciate your help.

      Thanks

  17. Today I passed the GCP architect exam. The test was really hard and braincert mock questions helped a little, I would say.

    3. Hi Somenath,

      I am facing some issue with GCP architect challenge lab. Could you please help me on this?

  18. Hi ,

    I have been reading your blogs for AWS exams. It is great to see your blog for GCP. Could you please help me understand how many questions come up in 2 hours exam?

    1. i don’t exactly recollect now, but i think its 50 questions in 2 hours for professional.

  19. Passed the Google Cloud Architect -professional exam successfully. Thanks Jayendra for all the brief you put in.

    1. Congrats Somenath, and it would be great if you can provide a feedback of the exam

  20. @Jaydendra – Which one will you recommend Braincert, Whizlabs or Udemy exam preparation question sets. Can you please shed some light.

      1. So shall I purchase Braincert as its costlier than Whizlabs, Do we have any discount coupons available for Braincert. Also does Braincert have explanation of all the questions and their answers like whizlabs?

        1. As per the feedback form users, Braincert is much better than Whizlabs in terms of quality, material and explanations.

  21. For those that pass can you provide feedback on your studying methods and materials used to study. Thanks

  23. Dear Mr. Patil — Thanks for the article, it was helpful. I passed my exam. It was not difficult for me, I had prepared a lot.

    2. Hi MZU,

      Can you share some material ( dump) to complete. I was complete AWS advance architect.
      Regards
      Srinivasan AC

  24. Great write up and made me realize I need to step up my studying.

    Do you recommend taking other Linux academy courses to prepare for the GCP PCA?
    for example, google app engine deep dive, security essentials, kubernetes deep dive etc.

    Thanks.

    1. Its better to actually do Linux Academy Professional Cloud Architect and Professional Data Engineer, which will help you prepare for both exams as there is a surely overlap on both of them.

  25. I like to share below point which helped with my exam

    Part 3 course in LA(linuxacademy) and “Braincert Practice tests papers” without which I could have not cleared the exam for sure (I have already taken courser for GCP traning and completed all 6 modules before starting with LA (it is free for one month)

    Below are the some of the import points in my learning which come in exam , I am able to recollect only some points

    LB

    Different btw Load Balancer , choosing the intended LB (L4 or L7)
    LB will not have firewall rules only instances will have
    Even if it is for backend database and the connection is https api choose L7 LB only

    Interconnect (Dedicated ,Partner or VPN ) :-you want more thans 4 gbps to 10 gbps take patner ,more than 10 gbps use dedicated ,vpn for all other

    Data transfer (GCS , Transfer Applications )

    In GCS we have diff transfer option ,online transfer ,gsutil ect…
    with gsutil you have diff option :- –m for parallel upload ,break and upload large file
    how customer encryption key is added :- to .boto config file, or the command encryption_key=[your key} in every gsutil connect you try to upload
    google recommends that if the data is more than 20 tb or take more that 7days use transfer applcations
    GCS life cycle

    Firewall priory rule (know what is implied allow egress rule , implied deny ingress rule and how the priory is set)

    SSH troubleshoot(stackdriver log will not help ) :-netcat to connect to port 22 or access the serial console

    GKE :- diff btw updating node and cluster ,know how the rollback will happened for statefull application and for other

    SAN storage is mapped to Persistent disk

    Role :- always try to choose pre-defined over other customer roles and primitive roles

    Below are the key words when choosing the correct option

    Stroage (time series, low latency :-Bigtable
    OLAP, analysis :-BIgquery
    for mobile :-datastore )

    Bigquery Roles (users ,jobusers ,dataeditor ,dataowner …) :-know how access is given

    Cloud SQL (read replica and failure replica ) :-only zonal not regional

    Snapshort and Images

    App stranded vs flexible diff

    Authentication :- GCDS ,OAUTH

    Dataflow , dataprep ,Cloud DLP

    MS SQL high availably :- use Always on Avalabity group in different zone

    Java error :-resigned or disable percompilation for the whole applcatiom in app engineZZ

  26. Hi Jayendra…,ashwanth,

    Are the linuxacademy courses – Linux Academy Professional Cloud Architect and Professional Data Engineer free for one month the way it is free in coursera or well need to buy the membership.
    website of linuxacademy reflects it is free for 7 days which i doubt if it will give full access to content. and pricing reflects – ~38$. Any other ideas for the free limited time access ?

    Best Regards,
    Deepak

    1. for LA you get free full access for 7 days, if you can complete it within that time.

  27. Hello. I just took the exam for the GCP Professional Cloud Architect and was not successful. What is the best source of study to pass the exam? I have heard about the folowing:

    LinuxAcademy
    BrainCert
    aCloudGuru

    I have taken all of the Coursera courses as well as the QuikLabs Hands-on-labs

    Do you have an idea of what is the best source?

    1. The way i cleared the exam was to do both the Linux Academy courses – Professional Cloud Architect and Professional Data Engineer. That prepared for the exam.
      I did not do Cousera much. I used Braincert for practice and build upon the concepts further and read more of the GCP documentation.

  28. Hello Jayendra,

    Last week I have cleared Associate exam ,so can you suggest how much time is required for architect.

    Regards
    Varun

    1. GCP Cloud Architect needs good preparation and i would recommend prepare for good 2 months before you appear for the exam. I found it usually to do the Data Engineer preparation with Cloud Architect as well, as there is a overlap between the two.

  29. Hello,

    Can you someone shares with question dump, I took the exam I failed, I don’t memorize the questions to study them later.

  30. Hi Jayendra,

    There is only one course “https://linuxacademy.com/course/google-cloud-certified-professional-cloud-architect/” (did they reduced the content ) in LA for this exam. Will that be enough for preparation with other resources you have mentioned.

    1. Hi Thianka, it was divided into 3 parts before seems combined now. I prepared Data and Cloud Architect professional together and it really helped for both exams as there is some overlap between them.

  31. Hi Jayendra,

    Do i need to know gcloud, gsutil etc commands for the exam? I am comfortable with Console but not with CLI.

  32. Do i need to learn all CLI commands for clearing the exam? I am comfortable with console but not with CLI.
    Thanks!

  33. Anyone please suggest for gcp professional architecture exam preparation on whizlabs and braincert both courses are same set of questions?

  34. Hi Jay,

    I have followed all your inputs and suggestions, I am giving my second attempt next week and I have almost completed preperations. Please give me few important tips and suggestions to crack google cloud architect certification.

    1. Hi Sneha, google professional exams cover a lot. Be sure you cover all topics in details. Also, its helpful to go through practice tests listed, it will help you in problem solving in the actual exam.

  35. Hi Jayendra,

    I don’t have linux academy subscription. What are the other resources along with coursera to prepare for GCP Professional Exam ?

    1. Hi Anuj, i haven’t any other course actually apart from Linux Academy and Coursera, which are both good. So you can check Coursera as well.

  36. Can you help to know what can be referred to pass Google Certified Professional Cloud Network Engineer exam. Does braincert of whizlabs have them? If not than what can be referred to prepare for exams and practice tests.

  37. Hi Jayendra, I cleared the GCP PCA. The guidance in your blog helped a lot to prepare. Thanks..

  38. Hi, I am preparing for the PCA through Coursera. Braincert practice test is not available. Please help me to redirect with the correct link.

  39. Hi Jayendra – i am planning to appear for the exam GCP Professional cloud architect in 1st week of March. prepared well. On practice questions, i don’t find it in Braincert. can you pl help me.

    1. Hi Ramu, for the Braincert exams i would recommend to reach out to the team, as I don’t see the exams as well. Will also check from my side.

  40. Hey Jeyendra

    Thanks for hosting this blog with lots of guidance for cloud certifications. I don’t see BrainCert having the Google Cloud Professional and Data engineer exams anymore. I only see the associate exam. Any thoughts on this ? Did they had it before and pulled it back.

  42. Hi Jayendra,

    Thanks for the guide. Do you know if Braincert removed the practice test for google cloud certified professional architect exam?

  43. Hi Jayendra/everyone,

    I am planning to take the Professional architect exam next month and am not able to find Braincert practice questions. Could any one of you please share your existing account to me so that I will go through the tests. Please contact me at my gmail id – jithufarm1 and I will pay you the cost of the practice exam.

    Thanks,
    Jithu

  44. Hi Jayendra

    I recently passed aws pro architect exam, how much time ideally need to finish study of Google pro

    1. AWS and GCP are quite different and Professional surely is at different level. Please give atleast 3 months.

  46. I found another blog esp. for those focusing on GCP certifications at https://www.cloudifies.com. Someone did it by just using Study Guide, Google documentation and the Google-recommended Study Guide-Long but interesting blog.

  47. Hello Jayendra

    Thanks for the wealth of information on your blog. It has been super helpful.

    I am looking to do Google Cloud PCA, and have started with LA course.
    I can’t find Braincert or Udemy practice exams anymore- as they are not accepting new enrollments.
    Any alternate suggestions?

    Thank you !!

  49. Hi JP, a small question, is Google ACE pre-requisite for Google PCA? I mean like what % of preparation towards Google ACE would help for Google PCA? would be good idea to prepare and give these certifications back to back, meaning is there some overlap in terms of knowledge which will be of benefit?

    Ex:- AWS SAA and AWS Developer overlaps a lot, so it is a bit easier to prepare them and write the exam back to back…

    1. Hi Shashikiran, GCP ACE and PCA does not have much overlap. PCA is quite wide and includes a lot of services and does in-depth in all. I actually took PCA first and then ACE, so it doesn’t matter much.

  50. I was able to crack the PCA certification due to this blog Jayendra. Especially your advise to take Braincert tests. I got atleast 5 similar questions in actual exam. Thank you very much!

  51. Hi Jayendra , I am not able Google Cloud Certified – Professional Cloud Architect Practice Exams on Braincert. Have they been removed ?

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