How to Pass the GCP PCA Exam & Improve Your Cloud Skills

If you are interested in a career in cloud computing, or more specifically GCP, the Google Cloud Professional Cloud Architect (PCA) journey is a challenging but beneficial road to take. With the proper approach and training strategy, you will gain proficiency in the core aspects of GCP enterprise cloud strategy, solution design, and architectural best practices to drive business outcomes. In this article, I'll break down my process, experience, and tips for success.

✨note / TL;DR: all resources are linked in the final section at the bottom, "Resource Links". The other sections are verbose.

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My Prep for the Exam:

TL;DR / Summary of Key Points:
------------------------------
> I used Skills Boost Arch Path as my course
> I prioritized labs in console, CLI, and cloudshell
> Familiarized with the 4 case studies
> Read through Google Arch Framework
> Familiarized with Google Arch Center docs
> Used StartCloudNow sheets for legit reference        

My PCA Strategy for Success:

• Firstly, visit the Google Cloud Professional Cloud Architect page on Google. This will give you an overview of the exam and what is required to complete the certification. (The sample questions are also found on this page).*Note: You will get questions from any of the 4 case studies; you have 120 mins to complete 50-60 questions.
• Similar to when I started the GCP ACE journey, the course I chose was the Google Skills Boost training (Architecture Path). This pathway teaches you the practical skills you will need to be proficient in GCP. It was a long course since I completed all labs and took notes (I highly recommend finishing all the labs at a minimum).
• My notes consisted of mindmaps and outlines of core topics (available in the "Resource Links" section). I didn't focus too much on note-taking, but instead just jotting down key concepts for me to refer back to. The majority of my energy was spent developing practical/technical hands-on in the console/cli/cloudshell. In addition to my notes, I also utilized the free PCA notes from Start Cloud Now Prepsheets. These sheets were created by Ammett Williams - a GCP developer advocate at Google and mentor for my cert journey. They are free and legit sources for reference.
• Familiarize yourself with the exam guide. I made sure to review all four case studies before the exam, this saved me A LOT of time during the actual test. Remember, you only have 2 hrs and the questions can be long! I highly recommend taking advantage of the info provided in the case studies to maximize your efficiency and time for the exam.
• Lastly, I spent some time rotating between labs/projects and familiarizing myself with the GCP Architecture Framework (similar to AWS's well-architected, pillars) and GCP Architecture Center for ref architectures and best practices.

❗️note: I've included other reputable resources in the final section that I would have used myself if needed.

My PCA Journey Experience & Tips

TL;DR / Summary of Key Points:
------------------------------
> A lot of technical overlap with GCP ACE
> Skillsboost Arch path has over ~%70 ACE labs overlap
> Pick ONE reputable course, rest of time in labs & docs
> Must do labs/projects (CLI, cloudshell, console)
> Do the 4 case studies BEFORE the exam
> Understand Google Arch Framework, Arch Center docs
> See Google sample practice Qs for exam Q insight
> Difficulty is on par with AWS SA Pro
> Review service list/core docs        

My Exam Experience: I took the test in person. Goog tests through Kryterion. Very similar to in-person testing for Pearson Vue. It was a smooth experience for the most part. PCA has a lot of overlap with ACE, if you use the skills boost path as I did, there is almost 70% overlap with the labs. This saved me a lot of time in my prep and allowed me to deep dive into the new architectural topics since the engineering objectives were fresh on my mind after passing the ACE and completing all labs.

During the exam, the case study UI was lagging on me, but thankfully I didn't need to reference them as much due to my prior review.

I would not have been as confident during the exam if it had not been for the time I spent with the practical labs. If you don't use skillsboost, check out the resource section below for lab/project recommendations to do in the GCP environment to ensure you can perform the core tasks the PCA exam calls out.

My General Thoughts & Tips:

• if I didn't use Skills Boost I would have used Antoni's course with a personal GCP account for labs
• use the official Google sample questions for insight and benchmarking
• use the flag/skip function accordingly - 2hrs will go by super fast and the questions can be quite lengthy, be mindful of analysis paralysis! Skipping + review function does help
• do not waste time doing multiple courses or taking extensive notes; pick one reputable course and focus the rest of your energy on labs/hands-on and familiarizing with the GCP services and Arch Framework/subsites - this will yield max efficiency for learning concepts and obtaining on-the-job skills
• 💡 If you are coming from AWS, check this out first - it helped speed things up for me: service comparison chart and GCP for AWS Professionals Skills Boost course. I would put GCP PCA difficulty on par with AWS SA Pro
• ❗️The main goal of certification(s) should be attaining the practical skills needed to make you proficient for the job/market. There is no point in 'passing' if you can't do the actual job/duties of a professional cloud architect! So choose to do the learning journey the right way and you will be rewarded with not only a certification but also with skills that will enable you to scale in your cloud career. Key learning/skill objectives for PCA are:

> Design and plan a cloud solution architecture
> Manage and provision the cloud solution infrastructure
> Design for security and compliance
> Analyze and optimize technical and business processes
> Manage implementations of cloud architecture
> Ensure solution and operations reliability         

Minimum Services to know (not an exhaustive list):

• Infra & Ops: Cloud Operations, Google Kubernetes Engine, Cloud Logging, Persistent Disks, Managed Instance Group, Cloud KMS, Organization Policies, Cloud Storage, Google Compute Engine, Cloud IAM
• Network: VPC, Shared VPC, VPC Peering, VPC Flow Logging, Serverless VPC Access, Cloud NAT, Cloud VPN, Cloud Interconnect
• Apps/Dev: App Engine, Cloud Build, Cloud Scheduler, Cloud Functions, Cloud Run, Firebase, Cloud Pub/Sub
• Data: BigQuery, Cloud Bigtable, Cloud Dataproc, Cloud Firestore, Cloud SQL, Cloud Spanner
• Processes: Organization Best practices, GKE Best Practices, IAM Best practices, Troubleshooting GKE, Cloud Storage Best practices

PCA Case Studies, familiarize before the exam:

• EHR Healthcare
• Helicopter Racing League
• Mountkirk Games
• TerramEarth

🗣🎙 Prioritize hands-on time in the GCP console and CLI/cloudshell. I recommend spending time on the following:

> Create & Manage Cloud Resources
> Perform Infra Tasks in GCP
> Configure an Environment in GCP
> Automate Infra, Terraform
> Deploy & Manage Environments
> GKE Cost Optimization
> Architecture Design, Implementation, Management
> Google Cloud Architecture Framework
> GCP Cloud Architecture Center        

Resource Links

💡 Again, the practical skills you gain from proper prep are much more valuable than passing an exam. Skills are what will make you the most marketable for what you do and/or where you want to go in your career!

• Official PCA Site: official Google PCA website
• PCA Exam Case Studies: familiarize before the exam (EHR Healthcare, Helicopter Racing League, Mountkirk Games, TerramEarth)
• GCP Architecture Framework: core GCP framework
• GCP Architecture Center: ref architectures, best practices
• Skills Boost (Architect path): Google official training. The majority of the path is FREE, labs may require credits.
• Skills Boost Partner Site: same as the above, except completely FREE for all partners. You can sign up with your work email.
• Practice Questions by Google: ~20 FREE official practice Q's similar to the real ones
• Start Cloud Now Prepsheets: FREE legit curated sheets by GCP Developer Relations Engineer, Ammett Williams
• Dan Sullivan Book: if you are a reader, this is the only book you'll need
• Antoni PCA course: I recommend any course Antoni does.
• Udemy Course: highly reviewed and recommended by the community (if you've never used Udemy before, always wait for sales - they do them frequently. Courses are usually ~$10 - $25 USD.)
• Awesome GCP repo: GitHub repo with tons of GCP references

🧠 My Notes/MindMaps:

*note: these are all stored and linked to my GitHub, you may need to download the pdf for best quality, these are large mindmaps:

• GCP Architecture Reference/Prep (need to download PDF to use links)
• GCP Architecture Notes
• Core Infra, Outline
• Core Services, Outline
• GKE, Outline
• Infra Scaling & Automation, Outline
• Logging, Monitoring, Observability, Outline

Best of luck if you end up taking it! I hope this was helpful. Please keep me posted on your results and reach out if there are any other questions. ✊✌️

⭐️ If this was helpful, you'll also enjoy my main article that outlines my favorite tech resources & content here 👉(LINK)!