A few months ago we started to ear about new partnerships between Google and (south)european telco top players (TIM in Italy, Telefonica in Spain).

In the new era of pandemic smartworking apocalypse, a lot of expectation comes from continous voices of “public agencies digitalization”.

In addition, one of the italian biggest banking groups signed a MoU (Memorandum of Understanding, for who doesn’t know the acronym, like me 3 hours ago) with Google and TIM for services digitalization and improvement.

Besides economics, GCP is a great platform where design solutions to master a plethora of use cases, so my team leader wanted me start learning about GCP and get certified.

Where to learn

I started to follow a learning path on Linux Academy.

It was composed by 5 distinct courses, and first target certification was Google Cloud Certified Associate Cloud Engineer, third course was specific to exam preparation.

All the courses are very exhaustive, with a lot of clear examples. After each section, a briefly test is proposed, and often it’s an “hand-on lab”, so you should get your hands dirty from time to time.

The dedicated course is full of “tips” as hot topics, central arguments, exam practices, and other suggestions. During the course the teacher faces a whole product deployment on GCP, including all the main components.

In conclusion is a great starting point. I have more or less 7 years of job seniority and probably I didn’t need for the first and second course but they introduced almost all the components and some basic tools.

I know that Coursera and other platforms provide good preparation courses.

Finally, if you want a solid preparation, attend one of these specific courses, you can listen to lessons anytime you want.

A looot of (also free) resources

Ok, and now? Let’s register for the exam test… NO

GCP has a very broad range og components, very complex, really different one from another, and not always you will find a direct correspondence with “traditional” tools.

So, first suggestion: practice a lot. Often the exam questions refers to recurring practice problems or specific interface (GUI or CLI) commands and sections, so it’s impossible to keep in mind everything and recall exactly what is being asked.

Great news: Google let’s you to try the WHOLE GCP platform using a free credit of 300$ (!) for 12 months.

How to obtain it? Simple as tap on this link.

You should register a payment method. Don’t worry, no payment is automatically applied unless you switch to an upgraded account, even if no more credit remains (but services would be blocked).

When free credit ends you can still make use of all services included in GCP free tier.

This is gold for you: try everything, enable all services, simulate real use cases (even better if complicated).

Ok, and now? Let’s register for the exam test… NO

Be patient. While you are feeling like a GCP veteran, a lot of specific issues to address are hiding, waiting for you exam day…. muuuuauauauahh

Like: “Which role should be used in order you can access service X enabled in project A from a user 123 currently having assigned only role μ in project B, but readonly? And I forgot, only on friday morning?”.

Be aware there are (often) 3 good answers out of 4, but question asks for more compliant, easier, harder, better, faster, stronger.

Explained: familiarize a lot with exam questions and right and wrong anwers.

It can be the only way to properly master a difficult question, like:

  • Exclude over-and-over-engineered solutions when a “working but not shiny” solution is available and a simple approach is requested.
  • Avoid destructive solution when downtime or resumable jobs are not contemplated.
  • Exclude “total automation”, es “You can push button A and a model S Tesla starts doing wheelies on the other side of the Earth”.

Here’s a lot of places where exam questions can be found (for free, you owe me a beer):

Ok, and now? Let’s register for the exam test… NO

Please, take one day or two to ask yourself “How can I safely share this data among services?” or “Which is the best product to make other two inter-communicate?”… take your time.

Ok, and now? Let’s register for the exam test… ok yes.

The exam

Official test should be booked on https://www.webassessor.com.

Google Associate Cloud Engineer exam an some others can be proctored in a remote way, all exams can be participated in a testing center near you.

Personally, because of the COVID-19, I opted for a remote exam, I can explain why.

It is composed by 50 questions.

To be answered in 120 mins.

The form is closed, single or multiple choice.

Each question is composed by a request, and some constraint. Each constraint, if well analyzed, can took you closer to the solution, so if you already read twice, read again a third time.

Often answers are very similar, but not identical, so again read them multiple times.

When you are unsure, place a temp answer and mark the question for review, before submit the exam you can review them all. Use this as an opportunity: sometimes an answer (or some hint) is contained in a following question. Be smart.

So, if taking so much care of what you’re reading for 120 mins at home can lead you to brain death, imagine to do the same on a stranger environment with a medical mask and gloves on.

After the obvious booking process, read carefully all the instuction to get your environment ready, especially technical and connection requirements.

Be on time with yout preparation, if you are unsure, you can reschedule for free 2 or 3 days before the exam.

The judgement day

All preparatory activities are well explained before and after registering for your exam.

One suggestion only: during the exam you can’t hold on your desk any item. You can’t leave the seat, you can’t talk, you can’t eat or drink, go to the toilet, write, breath and transpire. You can’t have a relationship, so call your gf/bf for a briefly breakup, Associate Cloud Engineer don’t need such things.

Connect and login 15 min before. Launch the test, make a selfie during the guided procedure, and wait for the proctoring technician to assist you during your room pan before to unlock your exam.

Good luck.

The end

After submitting your answers, you will be redirected to a questionnaire about the test itself and you experience with it. You can enter some suggestion.

Once the exam application closes, if you pass, you’ll be warned about the Google exam validation time of 7/10 days. An App Engine instance starts in milliseconds, Google validate your passed exam in 10 days. Bah.

Conclusion

You paid 150$ for an exam that opens a lot of opportunities for your career, and, also important, prepares you for facing upper level certifications, like Google Professional Cloud Architect or Professional Data Engineer. All these higher certifications include the Associate Cloud Engineer topics as common argument, so it’s the ideal starting point for ramping over GCP certs.