This is an eight-week plan for someone with Associate Cloud Engineer-level knowledge and real Google Cloud experience. It works through the six sections, weaves in the published case studies, and finishes with timed practice. Build experience first if you are newer to GCP. Confirm the current exam guide on the Google Cloud certification page.
Weeks 1-2 - Designing and planning
Practise turning business and technical requirements into architecture: compute, storage, networking and migration choices. Use the free tier to build small solutions.
Weeks 3-4 - Provisioning and implementation
Cover managing and provisioning infrastructure (networks, storage, deploying resources) and managing implementation (deployment, integration with dev and ops).
Weeks 5-6 - Security, reliability and optimisation
Designing for security and compliance (IAM, least privilege, data protection); ensuring reliability (monitoring, logging, incident response); and analysing and optimising processes (cost, performance).
Weeks 7-8 - Case studies and practice
Study the published case studies in depth - design the architecture for each fictional company. Then sit full-length, timed practice tests, review the reasoning behind every miss, and revisit the case studies until each feels obvious.
Tips
- Read the published case studies early and often; several questions depend on them.
- Always ask “what does the scenario require?” before choosing a service.
- Avoid “exam dump” sites - they breach Google’s policy and copyright.