The why on certifications

Everyone has an opinion on technical certification exams. For me, it is just another excuse to block my agenda to study a few days. I don’t attach more value to the certificate than seeing it as a proof that someone at least went very thoroughly through a specific piece of knowledge. No less, no more.

For us at vBridge, there is no discussion: everyone has to certify to some level because we have some important partnerships that require this. Our customers deserve the best answers for their challenges, and our continuously updated expertise is key to that.

Last week, I took the Google Cloud Certified Professional Architect exam. I particularly like this exam, because it doesn’t focus on specific commands or tools, but on the best practices for building GCP cloud solutions.

I passed this exam in 2019, and so, the deadline was approaching to recertify.

Google exams are organized by Kryterion, and can be done at home or in an exam center. Because of the ever changing Covid-restrictions, I preferred the at-home option. Bonus: you are forced to clean up your desk. The only spot left in the reservation tool was only a mere two days later, rendering this post into a “how to pass the GCP architect exam in three days”

My first and best advice: reserve a lot more time for preparation if it’s your first attempt. You really need hands-on experience and good product knowledge. More than you can possible gather in a few days.

So here you have my preparation tips:

  • Start with the practice exam on the official site. These questions really resemble to what to expect on the exam. If you have trouble in finding the correct answers for most of the questions: postpone your exam. You are not ready. A little warning though: these questions are on the site for quite some time, expect some questions on newer products too.
  • “Everything” is important, but products central in the portfolio get most of the questions (compute, storage, networking). Other services only get a few questions (Cloud composer, ML, ..). Go through the exam blueprint in great detail. You should be able to talk about every topic in detail to someone.
  • Do not rush through the questions. There is plenty of time. The first questions took me a long time to answer because they were based on the lengthy case studies on the official site, but the other questions were more condensed. Read the case studies before taking the exam. The exam interface is clunky and feels like it was build 20 years ago: reading the case studies there is not so pleasant, especially with the time ticking away.
  • Skim the answers before you read the question. It helps to find clues faster. Every question is a small scenario. If the answers are all about storage technologies, you can read the question with that in mind. You could for example ay extra attenton for retention requirements, SLA’s, performance requirements, hidden in the question…
  • Because of my limited preparation time, I took a course on Udemy: Google Cloud Professional Architect: Get Certified 2021 (8h). I took this course specifically because it was only 8 hours, probably not the best argument for choosing course materials. It was ok..
  • Make sure not to rely solely on old study materials: the exam is updated every once in a while; books and e-courses are not always up to date. Make sure you know the concepts of newer products (Cloud Run for example) well.
  • If you think you know the answer to a question, make sure you know how to eliminate the other possibilities too. The devil is in the details. Typically, there are multiple technical valid/possible answers to the same question, but there might be soft requirements hidden in the question that exclude some of these options.
  • The exam is about concepts, do not focus on the ever changing usage limits, pricing, featuresets.

After you pass

After taking the exam, you get rewarded with a gift.

swag

Good luck!