Firstly, I'm not selling anything. Secondly, don't panic - it can be done.

When I was first asked to take it, I half panicked inside. So much to cover, so many intricacies. I had a great five day kick-start, by a great tutor, of what would be covered in the exams, including extras that 'might' be covered.

The exam changes periodically, so as subjects and tech. become old, or new and shiny tech. is introduced onto the Google Cloud Platform (GCP), subjects and questions are honed.

So, placed here for your personal use is my brain-dump after passing the GCP Cloud Architect Certification exam. 

Get Organised

• Read the official exam page at Google

• Write down the subjects and areas that will be covered

• I printed out a lot of information, both from the exam page at Google and subject matter

• Make sure you learn the case studies provided by Google

• Work out how long you have until your exam day deadline - DO set one.

• Create an account on GCP - you get free credits and it allows you to do Google's training.

• Coursera is a great option for training.

Plan Your Regime

So you've read Google's exam page, and know what is covered. You know when your exam date will be. Setting a hard stop means you won't procrastinate. Don't set it too soon, give yourself at the minimum three months (yes, I know people have done it quicker, but they've normally used GCP before, know some of the products or have used other Cloud technologies prior to taking the exam. And there are a lot of similarities between cloud providers)

Make a rough timetable to cover all aspects of the exam.

Book Your Exam

These will be locality specific so search up your local centre.

Start To Study

Use youtube, books. These are the books I used.

Print out review material and use a tablet along with the book to clarify as you're reading through. Whatever makes you comfier.

As I was reading books or printouts, I highlighted key areas. This was my equivalent of writing it out, it stored the information in long term memory. I did write things out as well, especially if I didn't understand straight away.

I drew diagrams as well, this helped with visualising.

Repeat to yourself anything you find more difficult.

Try and find a lock and key method. For example - I couldn't remember what Dataproc consisted of. It's Spark and Hadoop. So, I just saw it was Datapro'c' and associated that with Spar'k' - a c to a k.

Take breaks. Don't burn out.

Practice exams are useful, but don't whiz through them. If possible, take one, then assess yourself to find key areas you need to improve upon.

Be sure to try the Linked-In GCP assessment which I've just noticed has become available. The link should work, but if not look for it directly on Linked-In.

Buy a couple of books or join online courses (I did both) and the books I used to pass the architect exam are here.

Don't rush the practice questions or practice exams, once you've seen a question

Exam Day

Understand what is being asked.

Questions are sometimes answered by eliminating the incorrect answers first.

Read the questions TWICE. Make a conscious effort each time to notice if it's multiple choice. 

Final Word

I'd just like to wish you luck. It takes some effort, but it's an enjoyable and rewarding experience.

You can see the books I used to pass the exam here. WELL worth a read.