I passed the GCP Cloud Architect exam, so I'll summarize what I learned before I forget.

Hello.
I'm Mandai, in charge of Wild on the development team.
And here at Beyond, I'm Mandai, the second GCP cloud architect.

The other day, I was finally able to pass the GCP Cloud Architect exam on my second attempt.
The first time was in January 2018, so I took the exam again after about 4 months had passed, but since I had been away for a bit too long, I missed a lot of what I had studied, so I studied a lot of things again, so I would like to summarize that area. I think so.

2018/06/08: When I first posted, I wrote that the cloud architect I was talking about here was called a solution architect, so I changed the name to the correct name (I'm looking forward to your comments on whether I actually passed the exam).
CA, thank you for taking the trouble to let me know!

what kind of problem will occur

These are all problems that require optimal solutions within GCP services.

• For example, I want to save certain data to Cloud Storage, but which class should I use? Or so.
• For example, what kind of VPC is best for communicating between different projects within an organization? Or so.
• For example, I want to use a GCP database in a global financial system that requires transactions, but which one should I use? Or so.

Although it is a multiple-choice test, there are many questions that make you think about it, and if you include reviews, you don't have the impression that you will have time to think about it that much.If you are not able to answer the basic content of the service (as written in the document) immediately, it will not work at a good pace. I am unable to answer.
There are some issues in which the requirements can be met with either option, but I think the key is whether we can come up with a configuration that has the right functionality.

During the last exam, there were questions that satisfied the requirements, so there were parts where I thought, "Either is fine!", but according to Google, neither is good.

 

You can read the best texts for exam preparation for free.

The most important reference book for the Cloud Architect exam is the official Google Cloud Platform documentation .
There were almost no questions about detailed operation methods using gcloud commands or the console screen, so it's better to focus on reading the documentation and accurately understanding the characteristics of the service rather than trying to memorize it.

If you are a developer or an infrastructure engineer like me, it would be great if you could use those skills to design and build systems in the future, but with the qualification of cloud architect, that is not what I am looking for. Apparently not.
In my case, I have been developing systems on GCP since around New Year's Eve, and I was able to design a system that was fully immersed in GCP services, so I had the opportunity to come into contact with GCP services quite a bit.

the Google Cloud Platform implementation case study contains quite important information .

Most of the articles are about introducing G Suite, GAE and BigQuery, and hurray for machine learning, so you can skip them (not all of them, I mean one or two are fine), but please read them. I think it's better to have one: Google Cloud Platform Japan Official Blog: Mercari, Inc.'s implementation example: Dramatically improve the development efficiency of global services by creating microservices using Kubernetes .

Since Kubernetes is in the title, you might think that they are just jumping on the trend of the times, but you would be wrong.They are using GCP services as a means to turn existing monolithic systems into microservices, and that they are using the collected data. The configuration to be analyzed (flowing data by effectively using products that handle big data such as BigQuery, Pub/Sub, Dataflow, and Dataproc) is a question that always appears on the exam, and it will also be useful for future reference.

Also, the Cloud Architect Certification Exam Guide , questions will be asked about two to three companies from among the problems faced and challenges faced by four fictitious companies in the sample case studies, so be sure to read any of them carefully. I think it's a good idea to read it and prepare for things like how to handle big data, how to utilize machine learning, and how to set up a network when migrating from an on-premises environment to a cloud environment.

Once you have finished these, try
the mock exam It's a mock exam, so you won't be asked exactly the same questions, but once you get a feel for the trends and atmosphere of the questions, when you look at the document again, your perspective may change slightly.

By the way, when I was talking with a colleague who took the exam at the same time, I discovered that the questions are actually completely different depending on the examinee, so rote memorization seems to be completely meaningless.

 

summary

I have summarized the GCP Cloud Architect exam preparation that I took.

It may be more efficient to do the mock exam → document → case study → mock exam because you can understand your weak points first.
AWS also has a similar qualification called Solution Architect, and it is said to be less difficult to obtain as there are many reference books available at bookstores, etc., so take this qualification first to gain knowledge of public clouds. There seems to be an opinion that it is advantageous to take the GCP Cloud Architect exam after completing the exam.
It's true that if you replace it with a compatible service, you can use the knowledge you learned on the AWS side, so it may seem like a detour, but it may be a shortcut.

When GCP participates in the Kansai GCP User Group (GCPUG), there are many participants, and it is easy to see that it is attracting a lot of attention.
I hope this article will help you pass the GCP Cloud Architect certification, which is currently attracting attention.

am highly praised by Beyond, which even pays to help me take these exams even though I am not an infrastructure engineer.

That's it.