The Google Professional Cloud Developer Exam is a test that assesses your abilities in creating and launching applications on the Google Cloud Platform (GCP). It’s aimed at developers who are skilled in making cloud applications on GCP that can handle growth and remain dependable. Succeeding in this exam showcases your expertise in GCP, your talent in crafting secure and efficient cloud apps, and your potential for career growth. Certified professionals are highly valued by GCP-using companies for their skills and commitment to providing top-notch services.
Google Professional Cloud Developer
Google itself has a good reputation worldwide. Moreover, every second person in the world uses Google. Most importantly, the certification provided by Google in the cloud platform field has become the interest of many individuals. Similarly, Google Professional Cloud Developer certification has created a good impact amongst individuals. As a result, Professional Cloud Developer certification is recognized globally for providing the highest-paying job.
Moreover, i have mentioned the abilities which will be validated for this exam. Please go through them,
- Firstly, this exam is designed for Professional Cloud Developers which helps to develop highly scalable applications using Google managed services.
- Secondly, Professional Cloud Developer exam will validate your skills for building, deploying and managing highly available applications.
- Further, this exam will assess you on the following skills that includes,
In the next step we will discuss the Google Professional Cloud Developer Exam Structure.
Course Structure of Professional Cloud Developer Exam
The Google Professional Cloud Developer Exam is a computer-based exam that consists of multiple-choice and multiple-select questions. The exam is designed to examine the candidate’s skills in designing, developing, and deploying cloud applications on GCP. The exam is conducted in English and is available globally through the official Google Cloud website.
Sometimes I have this thought in my mind that why would I go for Google Cloud Developer certification. Maybe some of you also have. So, let’s know why!
Google Cloud Developer can be beneficial in many ways. Thus includes,
- Firstly, you will be globally recognized as a Google certified professional cloud developer. Moreover you will be given more value than the non-certified one’s.
- Secondly, this certification will help you show what you are capable of. In other words, you will prove yourself using your skills and abilities.
- Most importantly, a Google Cloud Professional Developer gets higher salary packages. Side by side you can also check for more new opportunities for enhancing your career.
Keep up with me in this blog, there is more to explore, learn and understand about Google Professional Cloud Developer exam.
Moreover, In the next step we will discuss Exam requirements.
Knowledge Requirement for the Professional Cloud Developer exam
To pass the Google Professional Cloud Developer Exam, candidates are expected to have a thorough understanding of the following topics related to Google Cloud Platform (GCP):
- Designing and developing scalable and reliable cloud applications on GCP
- Implementing and managing cloud infrastructure on GCP
- Developing and deploying cloud applications using GCP services such as Google App Engine, Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE), and Cloud Functions
- Storing and retrieving data using GCP services such as Cloud SQL, Cloud Storage, and Bigtable
- Implementing security and compliance policies on GCP
- Managing and monitoring GCP resources
- Integrating GCP services with other systems and services.
In addition to the above topics, candidates should also have a good understanding of programming languages such as Java, Python, and Node.js, as well as experience with software development practices such as Agile and DevOps.
It is recommended that candidates have hands-on experience with GCP and practical experience in developing and deploying cloud applications on GCP to successfully pass the exam.
Google Professional Cloud Developer Course Outline
When preparing for any exam, it’s important to gather the relevant topics before you start studying. Similarly, Google has outlined the key subjects for the Professional Cloud Developer exam. This saves you time by focusing your efforts on these specific areas. Above all, you can also access them using the Google Exam Guide webpage. The topics are,
Topic 1: Designing highly scalable, available, and reliable cloud-native applications (33%)
1.1 Designing high-performing applications and APIs. Considerations include:
- Microservices (Google Documentation: Microservices Architecture on Google App Engine, Migrating a monolithic application to microservices on Google Kubernetes Engine)
- Choosing the appropriate platform based on the use case and requirements (e.g., IaaS [infrastructure as a service], CaaS [container as a service], PaaS [platform as a service], FaaS [function as a service])
- Application modernization (e.g., containerization)
- Understanding how Google Cloud services are geographically distributed (e.g., latency, regional services, zonal services) (Google Documentation: Geography and regions, Regions and Zones)
- User session management (Google Documentation: Handling sessions with Firestore, Managing sessions with external identities
- Caching solutions (Google Documentation: Memorystore)
- HTTP REST versus gRPC (Google Remote Procedure Call) (Google Documentation: gRPC vs REST)
- Incorporating Service Control capabilities offered by API services (e.g. Apigee) (Google Documentation: What is Apigee?)
- Loosely coupled asynchronous applications (e.g., Apache Kafka, Pub/Sub, Eventarc) (Google Documentation: Connect Pub/Sub to Apache Kafka, Eventarc)
- Instrumenting code to produce metrics, logs, and traces (Google Documentation: Instrument for Cloud Trace)
- Cost optimization and resource optimization
- Graceful handling of errors, disasters, and scaling events (Google Documentation: Data deletion on Google Cloud)
1.2 Designing secure applications. Considerations include:
- Implementing data lifecycle and residency requirements for applicable regulations
- Security mechanisms that protect services and resources (Google Documentation: Google Infrastructure Security Design Overview)
- Security mechanisms that identify vulnerabilities and protect services and resources (e.g., Identity Aware Proxy [IAP], Web Security Scanner) (Google Documentation: Setting up custom scans using Web Security Scanner)
- Security mechanisms that secure/scan application binaries, dependencies, and manifests (e.g., Container Analysis) (Google Documentation: Container scanning overview)
- Storing, accessing, and rotating application secrets and encryption keys (e.g., Secret Manager, Cloud Key Management Service) (Google Documentation: Enable customer-managed encryption keys for Secret Manager)
- Authenticating to Google Cloud services (e.g., application default credentials, JSON Web Token [JWT], OAuth 2.0) (Google Documentation: Authentication methods at Google)
- End-user account management and authentication using Identity Platform
- Identity and Access Management (IAM) roles for users, groups, and service accounts (Google Documentation: IAM Overview)
- Securing service-to-service communications (e.g., service mesh, Kubernetes Network Policies, and Kubernetes namespaces) (Google Documentation: Kubernetes best practices: Organizing with Namespaces)
- Running services with keyless and least privileged access (e.g., Workload Identity, Workload identity federation) (Google Documentation: Workload Identity)
- Certificate-based authentication (e.g., SSL, mTLS) (Google Documentation: SSL certificates overview, Mutual TLS authentication)
- Supply-chain Levels for Software Artifacts (SLSA)
1.3 Choosing storage options for application data. Considerations include:
- Time-limited access to objects (Google Documentation: Overview of access control)
- Data retention requirements (Google Documentation: Retention policies and retention policy locks)
- Structured versus unstructured data (e.g., SQL versus NoSQL)
- Strong versus eventual consistency (Google Documentation: Balancing Strong and Eventual Consistency with Datastore)
- Data volume (Google Documentation: Storage options)
- Data access patterns
- Online transaction processing (OLTP) versus data warehousing
Topic 2: Building and testing applications (26%)
2.1 Setting up your local development environment. Considerations include:
- Emulating Google Cloud services for local application development (Google Documentation: Using the Local Development Server)
- Using the Google Cloud console, Google Cloud SDK, Cloud Shell, and Cloud Workstations
- Using developer tooling (e.g., common IDEs, Cloud Code, Skaffold) (Google Documentation: Kubernetes development, simplified—Skaffold is now GA)
- Authenticating to Google Cloud services (e.g., Cloud SQL Auth proxy, AlloyDB Auth proxy)
2.2 Building. Considerations include:
- Source control management (Google Documentation: Cloud Source Repositories
- Creating secure container images from code (Google Documentation: Building Containers, Quickstart for Container Registry)
- Developing a continuous integration pipeline using services (e.g., Cloud Build, Artifact Registry) that construct deployment artifacts (Google Documentation: CI/CD on Google Cloud, Quickstart for Container Registry, Cloud Build)
- Code and test build optimization
2.3 Testing. Considerations include:
- Unit testing (Google Documentation: Local Unit Testing for Python 2, Testing Overview)
- Integration testing including the use of emulators
- Performance testing (Google Documentation: Testing Overview, Distributed load testing using Google Kubernetes Engine)
- Load testing (Google Documentation: Distributed load testing using Google Kubernetes Engine)
- Failure testing/chaos engineering
Topic 3: Deploying applications (19%)
3.1 Adopting appropriate feature rollout strategies. Considerations include:
- A/B testing (Google Documentation: Monitor and analyze A/B experiments)
- Feature flags
- Backward compatibility (Google Documentation: Compatibility)
- Versioning APIs (e.g., Apigee) (Google Documentation: What is Apigee API hub?)
3.2 Deploying applications to a serverless computing environment. Considerations include:
- Deploying applications from source code (Google Documentation: Deploy from source code)
- Using triggers to invoke functions (Google Documentation: Cloud Functions triggers)
- Configuring event receivers (e.g., Eventarc, Pub/Sub) (Google Documentation: Receive events using Pub/Sub messages (gcloud CLI))
- Exposing and securing application APIs (e.g., Apigee) (Google Documentation: Overview of Advanced API Security)
3.3 Deploying applications and services to Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE). Considerations include:
- Deploying a containerized application to GKE (Google Documentation: Deploying a containerized web application)
- Integrating Kubernetes role-based access control (RBAC) with IAM
- Defining workload specifications (e.g., resource requirements) (Google Documentation: Workload Identity)
- Building a container image using Cloud Build (Google Documentation: Building container images)
Topic 4: Integrating an application with Google Cloud services (22%)
4.1 Integrating an application with data and storage services. Considerations include:
- Managing connections to data stores (e.g., Cloud SQL, Cloud Spanner, Firestore, Bigtable, Cloud Storage)
- Reading/writing data to or from various datastores
- Writing an application that publishes/consumes data asynchronously (e.g., from Pub/Sub or streaming data sources) (Google Documentation: Writing and Responding to Pub/Sub Messages, Pub/Sub)
- Orchestrate application services with Workflows, Eventarc, Cloud Tasks, and Cloud Scheduler
4.2 Integrating an application with Google Cloud APIs. Considerations include:
- Enabling Google Cloud services
- Making API calls using supported options (e.g., Cloud Client Library, REST API or gRPC, APIs Explorer) taking into consideration:
- Batching requests (Google Documentation: Batching requests)
- Restricting return data (Google Documentation: Working with Quotas, Usage limits)
- Paginating results (Google Documentation: Paging through table data, Paginating data with query cursors)
- Caching results (Google Documentation: Using cached query results)
- Error handling (e.g., exponential backoff) (Google Documentation: Truncated exponential backoff)
- Using service accounts to make Cloud API calls (Google Documentation: Service accounts)
- Integrating with Google Cloud’s operations suite
Moving on, in the next step you will be provided every exam related information.
Now let’s discuss about the Exam details,
Firstly, we will discuss question types.
Exam Question Format
For Google Professional Cloud Developer exam you will be having two types of questions.
- Firstly, you will deal with multiple choice questions.
- Moreover, there will be multiple select questions.
Exam Registration
For those who are interested in Professional Cloud Developer exam can easily schedule the exam. For registering you can check the following are the step,
- Firstly, you need to have Web assessor account. After that, you need to login into that account. To create, click here.
- Then, update your details including personal email address.
- After that, check the catalog and then register for the exam you want to apply for.
- There you can choose the exam center.
- Above all, when you register for an exam, you need to schedule an exam time at a Kryterion testing center. Moreover, you can locate the nearest testing center here.
Exam Retake policy: Google Cloud Certified Professional Cloud Developer
You will be happy to know you can retake the Professional Cloud Developer exam. Let’s know the procedure.
- If you failed to give your exam on the scheduled day. Then, you have to look for the reschedule/cancel policy.
- Therefore, you can cancel or reschedule your exam by logging into your Proctor U account.
- Moreover, you need to make sure that you do this 48 hours or 2 days before the actual exam else you have to pay fees for the same.
Points you need to remember for giving exam again,
- If you fail the exam the first time, you are required to wait 14 days before you can retake the exam.
- Above all, you have to pay the full fee every time you retake the exam.
- Likewise, if you fail a second time, the wait time increases to 60 days and after that you have to wait 365 days before attempting again.
Preparing for Google Professional Cloud Developer Exam
Now, let’s talk about the crucial step: preparing for the exam. I understand that starting can be a bit overwhelming. However, there’s no need to stress! We’ll figure out the best approach to kick off your exam preparation.
Above all, there is no need to take any tension or stress. Just remember that nothing is impossible. So, you will do best in this exam.
Furthermore, there are numerous ways to begin your exam preparation. However, the choice of how you start lies with you. Essentially, you need to discover effective study techniques. To assist you, I’ll share some methods that could prove beneficial. Let’s break it down step by step.
Google Professional Cloud Developer Training
Google provides Google Cloud Training for Professional Cloud developer exam. Moreover, this is a 3 days course named asDeveloping Applications with Google Cloud Platform. Above all, you can get detailed information of this course on Google Cloud Training page. In this you will learn how to design, develop and deploy the applications. Above all, it includes hands on practice, demos and presentations. You can apply for this here.
Study materials and resources
There are various study materials and resources available to prepare for the Google Professional Cloud Developer Exam, such as official Google Cloud documentation, study guides, whitepapers, and online courses. It is recommended to use official resources as they provide the most up-to-date and accurate information about GCP.
Understanding the Google Cloud Platform (GCP)
To successfully pass the exam, it’s crucial to have a thorough grasp of the Google Cloud Platform. Candidates must be acquainted with the various services offered by GCP and their applications in creating and launching cloud applications. Additionally, understanding the best practices and design strategies for developing applications on GCP is vital.
Hands-on experience with GCP
Having practical experience with GCP is essential for exam success. Candidates need to actually develop, test, and launch cloud applications using GCP services. Gaining hands-on experience involves working on GCP projects, trying out its services, and creating practice applications.
Resolving Queries and Doubts
Many websites are available which provide every detail related to exams. Moreover, these sites also include user queries. Above all, you will get resolved with most of the queries. In addition, Google also has a Certification FAQs which contains questions related to exam and certification.
For example, you can use “Quora” for resolving queries. It will clear most of your doubts.
Moving on, next comes the important part that is a good study plan.
Study Plan
For every exam before starting studying the main focus is to create a good study plan. That is to say, you need to do some research related to the exam in which you can look for previous exam patterns.
Moreover, this will help you understand where you have to start. Above all, there you can also highlight your weak and strong area.
For example, you are starting to prepare for the exam without any study plan. This will not help you in most ways. So, that’s why you need to have a better preparation plan and material.
Most importantly, there is a requirement of having a calm and focused mindset. This will not create any confusion during the preparation. Moreover, you will understand and remember things easily.
Practicing
Similarly, you need to study but it is also required that you should practice. Moreover, practicing is the door to achieve everything. So, firstly you need to start assessing yourself with Professional Cloud Developer Practice Exam.
For Google Professional Cloud Developer exam experience and hands on practice plays an important role. Without this you cannot move forward with the exam. As a result, Google Cloud provides practices tests which can help you during exam preparation.
You can check this on the Professional Cloud Developer page.
Moreover, you can also check TestPrep training for practice questions. Above all, they have experts who work on these questions with regular updates and latest questions.
- Free Practice exam questions for Google Professional Cloud Developer exam.
- Real time Practice exam questions for Google Professional Cloud Developer exam with detailed analysis.
Exam Tips and Strategies
Time management:
Effective time management is crucial to passing the Google Professional Cloud Developer Exam. Candidates should carefully manage their time and allocate enough time to each question. It is recommended that candidates spend approximately two minutes per question and avoid spending too much time on any single question.
Reading the questions carefully:
Candidates should read the questions carefully to ensure that they fully understand what is being asked. They should pay attention to keywords and phrases, and take note of any specific details mentioned in the question. Candidates should also carefully read the answer choices to avoid selecting incorrect answers.
Eliminating incorrect answer choices:
When facing multiple-choice questions, candidates should aim to rule out obviously wrong answers. This strategy narrows down choices and improves the odds of choosing the right answer. Also, they need to think about the question’s context and pick the answer that makes the most sense for the given situation.
Guessing when unsure:
If a candidate is unsure about the answer to a question, it is better to guess than to leave the question unanswered. Candidates should try to eliminate any obviously incorrect answer choices and make an educated guess based on their knowledge and understanding of the topic.
Reviewing your answers:
After completing the exam, candidates should take the time to review their answers. They should double-check their responses and make sure that they have answered all the questions. Candidates should also review any questions that they are unsure about and make any necessary changes. However, candidates should be careful not to overthink or second-guess themselves and avoid changing answers unless they are confident that they are incorrect.
Summing up Everything
If you’re a developer interested in cloud computing, taking the Google Professional Cloud Developer Exam can be a valuable chance to show off your skills and move ahead in your career. This certification can prove to potential employers and clients that you really understand the Google Cloud Platform (GCP) and can create, develop, and put cloud applications on GCP. Moreover, getting the Google Professional Cloud Developer certification can increase your earning potential and open doors to new career paths. As the demand for cloud computing experts grows, this certification can make you stand out and excel in a competitive job market. While getting ready for the exam might take some time and focus, the rewards of getting this certification are definitely worth it. With the right preparation, you can pass the exam and earn recognition and opportunities that come with this certification.
