Learning Guide for ​Associate Cloud Engineer 

Certification 
 

Get Trained 

Acquire Hands-On Experience 

Gain Solution Design and Development Experience 

Review Documentation, Blogs and Whitepapers 

Get Ready for the Exam 

 

Get Trained 
(Note: The Associate Cloud Engineer and Professional Cloud Architect have a lot of the same study and 
class material in common. This is because they cover the same fundamental subject - building resilient, 
scalable, cost-effective systems in the cloud. The two certifications differ in emphasis though. The 
Associate Cloud Engineer certification measures and certifies your knowledge of the fundamentals of 
Google Cloud technology. The Professional Cloud Architect measures your ability to meet the customers 
requirements, constraints, and other needs using Google Cloud technology.) 
 
❏ Review the e ​ xam guide​ to understand the scope of the certification exam and technical 
areas to focus. (​ estimated time: 30 mins) 
❏ Take the p​ ractice exam​ to familiarize with the type of questions that might be on the 
exam, check readiness to take the exam and assess whether additional preparation 
and/or hands-on experience is needed. (​ estimated time: 45 mins) 
❏ Complete the Cloud Infrastructure track classes either through Coursera or Classroom 
Instructor-Led offerings. The training curriculum and content is the same across 
on-demand and instructor-led offerings.  
On-Demand (Coursera) 
Complete the first 4 courses of C ​ loud Engineering with GCP 
(listed below): 
1. Google Cloud Platform Fundamentals: Core Infrastructure​ ​(estimated time: 11 
hours) 
2. Essential Cloud Infrastructure: Foundation​ (​ estimated time: 9 hours) 
3. Essential Cloud Infrastructure: Core Services​ ​(estimated time: 9 hours) 

Training and Certification 

© 2020 Google Inc.
 4. Elastic Cloud Infrastructure: Scaling and Automation​ ​(estimated time: 9 hours) 
5. Preparing for the Google Cloud Associate Cloud Engineer Exam ​(estimated time: 4
hours) 
 
Complete these classes from A
​ rchitecting with Google Kubernetes Engine 
1. Architecting with Google Kubernetes Engine: Foundations ​(estimated time: 9 
hours) 
2. Architecting with Google Kubernetes Engine: Workloads ​(estimated time: 17 
hours) 
3. Architecting with Google Kubernetes Engine: Production​ ​(estimated time: 9 
hours) 
 
 
 
or 
Classroom Instructor-Led 
Attend the following 2 classroom offerings: 
1. Google Cloud Platform Fundamentals: Core Infrastructure​ ​(duration: 1 day) 
2. Architecting with Google Cloud Platform: Infrastructure​ ​(duration: 3 days) 
3. Architecting with Google Kubernetes Engine​ (duration: 3 days) 
 
❏ For those with an AWS background, review the G ​ oogle Cloud Platform for AWS 
Professionals​. Similarly review the G
​ oogle Cloud Platform for Azure Professionals​ for 
those familiarity with Azure. ​(estimated time: 3 hours) 

Acquire Hands-On Experience 

❏ Complete a set of self-paced labs for gaining hands-on experience to deploy 
applications, monitor operations, and manage enterprise solutions. 
 
Qwiklabs Quests 
Complete the following quests: 
1. Introductory: ​GCP Essentials​ ​(5 labs, e
​ stimated time: 3 hours​) 
2. Fundamental: ​Cloud Engineering​ ​(5 labs, e ​ stimated time: 7 hours) 
3. Kubernetes: K ​ ubernetes in the Google Cloud​ ​(5 labs, e ​ stimated time: 5 hours) 
 
Completion of the following quests are highly recommended: 
1. Introductory: ​Deploying Applications​ (​ 5 labs, ​estimated time: 5 hours) 
2. Fundamental: ​Security & Identity Fundamentals​ ​(7 labs, ​estimated time: 7 hours) 
3. Fundamental: ​Stackdriver​ ​(9 labs, ​estimated time: 8 hours) 
4. Fundamental: ​Networking in the Google Cloud​ (​ 5 labs, ​estimated time: 6 hours) 
5. Advanced: K ​ ubernetes in the Google Cloud​ ​(5 labs, e ​ stimated time: 5 hours) 
6. Advanced: N ​ etwork Performance and Optimization​ ​(7 labs, e ​ stimated time: 7 hours) 
7. Advanced: D ​ eployment Manager​ ​(10 labs, ​estimated time: 10 hours) 

Training and Certification 

© 2020 Google Inc.
 8. Advanced: M ​ anaging Cloud Infrastructure with Terraform​ ​(6 labs, e
​ stimated time: 7 
hours) 
9. Expert: ​Kubernetes Solutions​ ​(10 labs, ​estimated time: 11 hours) 
10. Expert: ​Google Cloud Solutions I: Scaling Your Infrastructure​ ​(9 labs, ​estimated 
time: 12 hours) 

Gain Solution Design and Development Experience 

❏ Review the cloud infrastructure solutions at ​Google Cloud Solutions​ under the following 
categories of compute, storage, networking, etc. ​(e
​ stimated time: 20 hours) 
 
A. Compute 
● Choosing a Computing Option
● Designing Robust Systems 
● Image Management Best Practices 
● Using Firebase for Real-time Events on App Engine 
● Setting Up LAMP on Compute Engine 
● Running Windows Server Failover Clustering 
● Best Practices for Compute Engine Region Selection 
● Reliable task scheduling on Compute Engine with Cloud Scheduler 
● Deploying a Multi-Subnet SQL Server 2016 Always On Availability Group on 
Compute Engine 
 
B. Storage 
● Transferring Big Data Sets to Cloud Platform 
● Automating the Classification of Data Uploaded to Cloud Storage 
● Building Scalable Web Applications with Cloud Datastore 
● Choosing the Right Architecture for Global Data Distribution 
● Loading, Storing, and Archiving Time Series Data 
● Choosing a Storage Option 
 
C. Networking 
● Application Capacity Optimizations with Global Load Balancing 
● Best Practices for Floating IP Addresses 
● Building High-throughput VPNs 
● Build high availability and high bandwidth NAT gateways 
● Using APIs from an External Network 
● Automated Network Deployment: Building a VPN Between GCP and AWS 
● How to set up remote access to MySQL on Compute Engine 
● Exposing gRPC services as REST APIs using Cloud Endpoints (​Part 1​, ​Part 2​) 
 
D. Security & IAM 
● Best Practices for DDoS Protection and Mitigation on Google Cloud Platform 

Training and Certification 

© 2020 Google Inc.
 ● Securing your Cloud Platform Account with Security Keys 
● Scenarios for Exporting Stackdriver Logging: Security and Access Analytics 
● Policy Design for Customers 
● Securing Rendering Workloads 
● Authentication in HTTP Cloud Functions 
● Securely Connecting to VM Instances 
● Deploying a Fault-Tolerant Microsoft Active Directory Environment 
● Federating Google Cloud Platform with Active Directory: Configuring single 
sign-on 
 
E. Deployment 
● Best Practices for Using Deployment Manager 
● Automated Network Deployment: Startup 
● Creating a Shared VPC with Deployment Manager 
● Compute Engine Management with Puppet, Chef, Salt, and Ansible 
 
F. Logging, Monitoring 
● Design Patterns for Exporting Stackdriver Logging 
● Customizing Stackdriver Logs for Kubernetes Engine with Fluentd 
● Autoscaling an Instance Group with Stackdriver Custom Metrics 
● Using Stackdriver Uptime Checks for Triggering Cloud Functions on a Schedule 
 
G. CI/CD, Development & Test 
● Continuous Deployment to Kubernetes Engine using Jenkins 
● Continuous Deployment on Compute Engine Using Ansible with Spinnaker 
● Continuous Delivery Pipelines with Spinnaker and Kubernetes Engine 
● Automating Canary Analysis on Google Kubernetes Engine with Spinnaker 
● Using Jenkins for Distributed Builds on Compute Engine 
 
H. Microservices & Containers 
● Preparing a Kubernetes Engine Environment for Production 
● Heterogeneous Deployment Patterns with Kubernetes 
● Best Practices for Building Containers 
● Best Practices for Operating Containers 
● Deploying Memcached on Kubernetes Engine 
● Architecture: Scalable Commerce Workloads using Microservices 
● Using Google Cloud Platform Services from Google Kubernetes Engine 
● Creating GKE Private Clusters with Network Proxies for External Access 
● Running Dedicated Game Servers in Kubernetes Engine 
● Distributed Load Testing Using Kubernetes 
● Choose Size and Scope of Google Kubernetes Engine Clusters 
● Using Kubernetes Engine to Deploy Apps with Regional Persistent Disks 
● Help secure software supply chains on Google Kubernetes Engine 

Training and Certification 

© 2020 Google Inc.
 
I. Mobile Apps 
● Mobile App Backend Services 
● Build a Mobile App Using Google Compute Engine and REST 
● Build an Android App Using Firebase and the App Engine Flexible Environment 
 
J. Open Source 
● Google Cloud Platform for OpenStack Users 
 
K. Migration 
● Best Practices for Migrating Virtual Machines to Compute Engine 
● Best Practices for App Engine Standard Environment Memcache 
● Migrating On-Premises Hadoop Infrastructure to Google Cloud Platform 
● Migrating HDFS Data from On-Premises to Google Cloud Platform 
● Migrating a MySQL Cluster to Compute Engine Using HAProxy 
● Architecture: Delivering Aggregated Travel Data with Minimal Latency 
● Migrating from DynamoDB to Cloud Spanner 
 
L. Hybrid Cloud 
● Hybrid and Multi-Cloud Patterns and Practices 
● Hybrid and Multi-Cloud Architecture Patterns 
● Hybrid and Multi-Cloud Network Topologies 
● Hybrid Connectivity Using Your Own Public IP Addresses on Compute Engine 
● Building a Hybrid Render Farm 
● Deploying the Elastifile Cross-Cloud Data Fabric 
 
M. Backup, Archival and Disaster Recovery 
● Disaster Recovery Building Blocks 
● Disaster Recovery Scenarios for Applications 
● Disaster Recovery Scenarios for Data 
● Building a Microsoft SQL Server Disaster Recovery Plan with Compute Engine 
 
N. SAP on GCP 
● Architecture: SAP Hybris Deployment  
● Running SAP Hybris Using SAP HANA 
● SAP HANA High Availability and Disaster Recovery Planning 
● Integrating GCP services with Cloud Foundry on SAP Cloud Platform 

Review Documentation, Blogs and Whitepapers 

❏ Review the P
​ ricing Calculator​, P​ roduct Pricing​, ​Cost Comparison Calculator​ and the 
Always Free Usage Limits​. ​(e
​ stimated time: 3 hours) 

Training and Certification 

© 2020 Google Inc.
 ❏ Read the Google Cloud Platform s​ ecurity​ whitepapers. For example: I​ nfrastructure 
Security​ and E ​ ncryption at Rest​. ​(​estimated time: 2 hours) 
❏ Read the S ​ ite Reliability Engineering Book​, especially the Chapter 2 (The Production 
Environment at Google, from the Viewpoint of an SRE), Chapter 6 (Monitoring 
Distributed Systems) and Chapter 17 (Testing for Reliability). (​ e ​ stimated time: 3 hours) 
❏ Explore the current ​Google Cloud Platform Marketplace​ solution offerings. ​(​estimated 
time: 2 hours) 
❏ View the short videos at ​Cloud Performance Atlas​, that dive into the intricacies of App 
Engine, GCE, GKE, and Networking. ​(e ​ stimated time: 2 hours) 
❏ In general, review the G ​ oogle Cloud Platform Documentation​ and the G ​ oogle Cloud 
Platform Blogs​. ​(e​ stimated time: 4+ hours) 

Get Ready for the Exam 

❏ Complete the training module on P ​ reparing for the Google Cloud Associate Cloud 
Engineer Exam​ ​(e
​ stimated time: 8 hours) 
❏ Re-take the p
​ ractice exam​ ​(estimated time: 45 mins) 

Optional: Attend the Mastery Certification Preparation Workshop 

(ROI Training) 
❏ Register and attend the 2-day R​ OI Training: ​Advanced Skills & Certification Workshop: 
Assoc. Engineer​ (Course 765). This is delivered by ROI Training, a GCP Authorized 
Training Partner. 

Training and Certification 

© 2020 Google Inc.