The list of Google certifications available has radically changed in the last few months, with a new focus in experience and comprehension of the broad picture, as opposed to rewarding trivia knowledge. There are 3 new certifications open today:
- Cloud Architect
- Data Engineer
- G Suite Administrator
These certificates replace what used to be the qualification exams after the CP300 and CPx200 courses, formerly known as Google Cloud Platform Qualified Systems Operations Professional, Google Cloud Platform Qualified Data Analyst and Google Cloud Platform Qualified Solution Developer.
The new Google Certified designation demonstrates the necessary skills to leverage Google Cloud technology in a way that transforms businesses and meaningfully impacts the people and customers they serve. Or, in their words:
- Gain industry recognition
- Validate your technical expertise
- Take your career to the next level
If you want to take a first look, or just cannot join an in-person course, you can use the free online Fundamentals courses available on Coursera.
Cloud Architect
The Cloud Architect Certification reflects elaborate knowledge about Google Cloud Platform and enables you to design, develop and manage systems based on the GCP services and products like compute services, storage and database services.
The following courses are helpful to achieve this certification:
- Google Cloud Platform Fundamentals: Core Infrastructure
- Architecting with Google Cloud Platform: Infrastructure
Bear in mind that these courses are not a requirement, but absolutely recommended to take the exam with reasonable expectations of success. After taking these courses, an in-person exam at one of the certified certification centers is the final step to get the certification.
Data Engineer
Over the past few years we have moved from managing gigabytes to petabytes or information. This has changed the role of Big Data management for the growth of medium and big companies, often combined Machine Learning to unlock new insights through data analysis.
The Data Engineer certification allows you to learn in-depth how Big Data and Machine Learning works inside Google Cloud Platform and helps you to take advantage of your data. The following courses help you to get this certifications:
- Google Cloud Platform Big Data and Machine Learning Fundamentals
- Serverless Data Analysis with Google BigQuery and Cloud Dataflow
- Data Engineering on Google Cloud Platform
The same considerations of the Cloud Architect certification apply.
About the certification exams
The certification exams are designed to identify individuals who demonstrate proficiency with certain critical job tasks. Real-world, hands-on experience is the best preparation. If you are not already proficient in the tasks listed in the exam guide, here are some useful training resources and reference materials:
- Cloud Architect Certification Exam Guide
- Google Cloud Training
- Google Developers Codelabs
- Google Cloud Platform Documentation
Bear in mind that exams used to be done online and with full access to the Internet. This is no longer the case. Now, after scheduling your exam at webassessor.com and choosing a test center to do the test, you have to be there in person at the selected time slot. You will have to present some kind of photo ID and the code that you receive via email. They will secure your stuff, since once the test starts you will not have access to the Internet or any kind of documentation with you.
Get the edge that comes from hands-on experience
These certifications can be obtained for free, but there are cases where you want to give your team the best possible hands-on experience they can get. Where it’s not enough to prepare the exams, you want some guarantee that it’s time well spent. There are insights that are only apparent after going through the materials over and over again, you see.
Since 2015, Extrema Sistemas is the Google Training Partner in EMEA that can help to best prepare the Cloud Architect and Data Engineer certification exams. Our team of Certified Instructors and Google Developer Experts can extend these materials with tons of practical hands-on experience obtained from supporting cases like yours.
If you have any question, want to organize an in-house course or take a public presential or online class, available in Spanish and English, please contact us at training@extrema-sistemas.com.