Associate Cloud Engineer Certification Exam Overview- Things to do
I’ve recently cleared Associate Cloud Engineer(ACE) Certification by Google. I would like to share my experience and my study plan & path.
Summary
This exam is not the easy one. If you are not prepared enough, The exam can take the shit out of you. The only advantage is there is no any use cases asked. It’s a pretty much balanced exam. Almost each and every Google service is asked. You will find it difficult to understand the questions without having enough understanding of the basics of services and their working. There is no any use case question. Mostly asked questions are from Kubernetes, Stackdriver & Networking. Most are scenario based MCQ questions.
Study Plan & Path
1. Focus on Google Documentation
As of now, There is no any exact video courses for ACE exam. Many video course platforms like Linux Academy, A cloud Guru are planning to make course. The courses might be available at this years end. So, The Google Documentation is the only way to start. The Google Documentation contains enough material for every services and products, their working and real world usage of Google Cloud Products. It will clear all your basic concepts and how Google manages the Cloud and what these products can do for you.
2. Follow the Best Practices Rule
“There are a lot of ways to do a task but Everyone prefers the Best way”
This is the simple rule you have to follow. Each services & products of the Google Cloud has its own best practice and special case usage. Be careful to understand that. Its working and it’s usage. There will be a number of questions regarding Google best practices. Have a look over Cost Effective Solutions. Every Cost Effective Solution is Google Best Practice
3. Hand-on on Google Codelab Tutorials
A lot of reading is done now. Now, let’s make your hands dirty with some hands-on. You can Sign-up for the GCP(Google Cloud Platform) Free Trial which gives you 300 credit to spend for 1 year(365 days). You can play around with different services which GCP offers with some restrictions. There are restrictions on Free Trial account. But Free trial account is enough to get familiar with services and their process. Follow the tutorials available for Kubernetes, Stackdrivers etc. By doing this, You will know what are the combination of services you need to run a specific app or website.
4. Youtube Playlist
There is a channel of Google Cloud dedicated especially to services and their use cases. Watch those videos, That will clarify you how different companies are building their customer solutions on GCP and how reliably GCP is serving their demands and helping them to grow and gain more customers. You’ll get to know about how to combine services to serve real world customers.
5. Make notes
This is the most important part. Make notes of every important point. These notes will help you at the time of revision. The notes might contain best practices, use cases, your understanding of GCP and its services. Read notes every time so that you can recall all the important points.
You can also see this published Practice Paper which I used to pass my exam.
