Passing all the 12 Google Cloud certifications efficiently
Last week, I shared my view of how to achieve 12 AWS certifications efficiently. Upon reading it, some of my students (ex-colleagues) contacted me and suggested that I should do the same for #Google #Cloud #certifications and share what I taught previously when I was one of the coaches for the #Accenture Global Cloud #Certification camp.
One of the most commonly asked question during my Google Cloud (#GCP) certification coaching sessions was “Which GCP certification should I take — ACE (Associate Cloud Engineer), PCA (Professional Cloud Architect) or PDE (Professional Data Engineer)?”
My most straightforward reply is “Well, it depends on your role”, but I understood where they are coming from. It boils down to the very different meaning of “Associate” vs “Professional” in GCP certifications as compared to the other certifications from other Cloud providers.
“Associate” vs “Professional”
For those who are familiar with the other non-GCP certifications, such as AWS, the Associate level exams are way easier than those at the Professional level, and therefore when you recertify for the AWS Certified Solutions Architect — Professional certification, your AWS Certified Solutions Architect — Associate certification and Cloud Practitioner are renewed at the same time as well.
Not true for GCP certification.
There is only 1 Associate certification — Associate Cloud Engineer and in GCP’s world, at the Associate level, you only focus on the technical requirements, whereas for Professional certification, you need to consider the business requirements as well.
If we compare both the ACE and PCA certifications, the number of questions (50 questions within 2 hours) and scope for exam are similar.
However, most candidates would feel the ACE exam is way much harder than PCA, as it’s more technical in nature (you need to know certain commands, for instance), and with a greater depth of the questions for the exam.
On the other hand, for PCA, there are as many as 15–16 questions on 4 case studies that you are given beforehand to analyse. If you have done your homework on these case studies prior to the PCA exam, you would have answered at least 90–95% of those 15–16 questions correctly.
Google Cloud do not publish the passing score, so you do not know what your score would be. All that is reflected on screen at the end of the exam is a Passed or Not Passed status. From my experiences in 5 GCP exams, I think the passing score is closer to 70–75% than 80%.
Assuming you get 14 out of the 16 questions case studies correctly, you can still afford to have 10 wrong answers for the remaining 34 questions to get at least 76%.
Therefore, with about the same amount of time to studying the same topics for both exams, passing the PCA exam is way easier than passing ACE, due to the case studies.
Now you see the difference? That a Google Cloud “Professional” exam can be easier than an “Associate” certification. This is not the case for AWS certifications.
Depth vs Scope
Both ACE and PCA have the same range of GCP services to be tested in the exams. What PCA has in addition to ACE certification is the 4 case studies, whereas the ACE’s questions are more in-depth and technical in nature. PDE’s questions are even more difficult than those of ACE, but with a narrower scope for the exam. In other words, you study for lesser GCP services, but be prepared for more in-depth technical questions for PDE exam.
So which certification to take?
My suggestion is to take all 3 — ACE, PCA and PDE, since they are quite similar and have significant overlapping areas, and hence you’ll be spending the same amount of effort to prepare. You can study for both ACE and PCA at the same time, and once you passed both exams ( you can attempt the Cloud Digital Leader exam at the same time as well, without any extra preparation), you can then spend the next 3–4 weeks focusing on PDE, by doing the practical labs.
I sat for both ACE and PCA exams in the span of 2 weeks, using those 2 weeks to do the 4 case studies. Had it not due to COVID-19 that resulted in all the testing centers becoming unavailable temporarily, I would have sat for the PDE exam within 4 weeks after I passed PCA. I took the PDE exam on 30 Jun 2020, when the testing centers were available again.
How I prepared for ACE, PCA & PDE
GCP certifications are not that difficult — they are neither the most difficult nor the easiest ones. This is based on my experiences with other Cloud vendors’ certifications, such as #AWS and #Microsoft #Azure. But of course, individual career and experience vary. What I deemed as challenging could be considered very easy by others, and vice versa.
My assessment is that with around 30 hours of studying, plus another 25–30 hours of doing the practical labs ( Qwiklabs is a good source, or you can login to the GCP console to do your own hands-on), you should have at least 90–95% chance of passing it (as far as I know, none of my students failed the ACE or PCA exams). Assuming that most candidate prepare for certifications on a part-time basis with a need to balance both work and family commitments, this should fit nicely within a 3–4 weeks duration.
My take is that try not to spend more than 6–8 weeks for studying and doing the labs, as the outcome may not be better with a typical 3–4 weeks schedule. You tend to lose the momentum and have the “decay of knowledge”. Those extra weeks are not going to help you much and the result is like an overfitted model in Machine Learning.
Note: If you only have time or money to do just 1 practical lab at #Qwiklabs, you can try this — Deploy to Kubernetes in Google Cloud | Google Cloud Skills Boost. You certainly must have some hands-on experiences with Kubernetes before attempting the ACE exam and you will thank me for saying this, after you passed it :).
How GCP certifications compare to the other Cloud certifications
Some of you may already be #certified for the other #Clouds, so you may probably be wondering how the GCP exams compare to those from AWS or Azure. In general, I think GCP exams are easier than AWS and Azure, and hence if you’re certified for AWS and Azure, you should not have any issues in passing the equivalent exams from GCP when you put in the same effort to study.
From my own experience, Google Certified Professional Cloud Architect certification is easier than AWS Solutions Architect (both Associate and Professional) and Microsoft Azure Solutions Architect, but much harder than Alibaba and Tencent Cloud Solutions Architect.
Recommended Courses for ACE, PCA and PDE
Below are the 3 recommended courses from Coursera. You do not have to pay for them if you choose the Audit option, and you will still get the full course content, as the Paid option.
The key difference between Audit and Paid option in #Coursera courses is that you will not get a Certificate of Completion for the Audit option. That’s fine since you will be getting the formal certificate (and Digital Badge too) from Google Cloud once you are formally certified.
Another minor difference is you cannot access the assessment questions at the end of each course section — that’s perfectly alright as well, as these questions are very simple and not representative of the actual exam questions.
4 Case Studies for PCA
You need to go through each case study to analyse the business and technical requirements, and come out with your own solutions, before the exam. The exam would have around 16 questions on these case studies. You do not have to memorise the case studies as they will be provided to you during the exam.
Books available at Amazon
I did not read any of the below books, but from the reviews at Amazon’s website and words-of-mouth from my ex-colleagues, I think they should be good references as well. Get them if you prefer reading books to watching videos.
Cloud Digital Leader and Professional Machine Learning Engineer
Google Cloud introduced many certifications after ACE, PCA and PDE and there is a total of 12 Google Cloud certifications now. Cloud Digital Leader is the equivalent of the AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner certification, so you do not have to prepare for anything if you are preparing or have passed any of the GCP certifications.
Likewise, Professional Machine Learning Engineer is very similar to the AWS Certified Machine Learning — Specialty certification, with 50% of the questions on general Machine Learning topics and not related to any GCP services. For instance, you need to know what the Confusion Matrix is, when to use L1 or L2 regularization, techniques for avoiding overfitting/underfitting, Supervised vs Unsupervised vs Reinforcement learning etc.
If you’re not familiar with Machine Learning, I highly recommend Prof. Andrew Ng’s courses to plug the knowledge gaps.
I took both exams on the same day — 15 Jan 2022, without any preparation for the Cloud Digital Leader certification as I believed my ACE and PCA certifications were sufficient to pass the exam. And I was right.
On the other hand, I did a few practical labs at Qwiklabs to prepare myself for the other 50% of questions from the Machine Learning Engineer exam, especially on how to setup the data pipelines using GCP services. I did not rewatch Andrew’s courses listed above, as I could still remember most of the ML stuff from the courses, and GCP exams are generally not as difficult as the AWS or Azure certifications.
My proposed optimal way of achieving all the 12 Google Cloud Certifications
I do not have the other 7 Google Cloud certifications, but after examining the exam guides, discussing with my ex-colleagues on those certifications that I do not have and based on my 12x AWS certified experiences, I believe the below is an effective way for one to achieve all the 12 Google Cloud certifications, with study time optimally maximised.
It is based on the same tips I shared for achieving 12 AWS certifications effectively.
- Tip 1: Study similar certifications at the same time.
- Tip 2: Leverage on knowledge gained in prior exams for the subsequent ones.
Recommended courses at Coursera for the other Google Cloud Certifications
- Cloud Security Engineer
- Cloud Network Engineer
- Cloud Developer
- Cloud DevOps Engineer
- Cloud Database Engineer
- Google Workspace Administrator
- Hybrid Multi-Cloud*
*Note: The last certification — Google Cloud Certified Fellow: Hybrid Multi-Cloud is only for nominated candidates and they are certified via a panel interview. Candidates must also be Google Cloud customers/partners and referred by an active Google Cloud Certified Fellow. You can refer to the Google Cloud website for more details.
I hope this article is useful for your journey as well.
Good luck for your Google Cloud certification!
- The opinions expressed here are solely the author’s and written in his personal capacity. They do not reflect the opinions of his current employer or any other organisation or individual.
- The information provided here is based on the author’s own experiences which happened a few years ago. Hence, some of the information may not be accurate as of now. Do check regularly for the latest updates at the Google Cloud certification website.
- Individual career and experience vary. What I deemed as challenging could be considered very easy by others and vice versa.
#GoogleCloud #GoogleCloudPlatform #GoogleCloudCertified #GoogleCertification #MultiCloud #AWSCloud #MicrosoftAzure #AlibabaCloud #HybridCloud
About the author
CHAN Chee Siong is a Cloud Solutions Architect, based in sunny Singapore, with more than 20 years of IT professional experience. His given name “Chee Siong” sounds like “Chicken Breast” in Mandarin/Chinese pronunciation, and he certainly does not know why his father gave him that name. But it certainly inspires him to dream of becoming a good Solutions Architect one day, so that he would design technical solutions that meet clients’ business requirements in the leanest manner and without any extra fat — just like the breast meat. In his spare time when he is not with his pretty wife and 2 young sons, he plays Nanoblock and volunteers for some organisations.
Originally published at https://www.linkedin.com.