Google Cloud Digital Leader Certification Guide

A Brief Introduction

This is a foundational-level certification for GCP, for taking and becoming certified there is  no prerequisites, this can be taken remotely proctored or can be taken in the exam center , and it is job-role neutral. It requires no hands-on expertise with Google Cloud. The Google Cloud Digital Leader certification is a new Google certification with an updated syllabus.

Like Azure has the AZ-900 Microsoft Azure Fundamentals, AWS has the Certified Cloud Practitioner (CCP), and now Google Cloud has the Google Cloud Digital Leader.

This certification has replaced the Associate Cloud Engineer certification. It suggested that you have at least six months of Google Cloud development experience.

EXAM Format

Questions: 40-50

Exam duration:

a. 90 minutes [Actual Exam time ]

b. Procedural time [ 15–30 mins ]

Registration fee: $99

Language: English

Exam format: Multiple choice and multiple select [ No negative marking, don’t leave anything unanswered]

Google says a Cloud Digital Leader can “articulate the capabilities of Google Cloud core products and services and how they benefit organizations. The Cloud Digital Leader can also describe common business use cases and how cloud solutions support an enterprise.”

In this exam guide as the candidate must grasp several essential choices, such as “costs vs responsibilities” and “degree of management versus freedom.” The exam also covers Google’s and users’ shared responsibilities for Google Cloud security and other parts of the systems they’ve constructed. Candidate must know about Capex, Opex , TCO, Billing aspects, GCP support plans , Compliance requirements.

Digital Courses : Udemy Course , Whizlabs

Exam Guide

From Jan 26th 2022, the study guide has changed , this post is based on the new study guide

General Terms Used in the Guide

Section 1: Introduction to Digital Transformation with Google Cloud (approximately 10% of the exam)

1. Explain why cloud technology is revolutionizing business

• Define key terms such as cloud, cloud technology, data, and digital transformation

2. Explain why it is critical for businesses to adopt new technology

• Compare and contrast cloud technology and traditional or on-premises technology
• Describe how customer expectations have changed because of cloud technology
• Identify the business and technical considerations that organizations need to think about when adopting cloud technology, including infrastructure, application and business platform modernization, the importance of data, security in the cloud

Section 2: Innovating with Data and Google Cloud (approximately 30% of the exam)

3. Describe the role of data in digital transformation and the importance of a data-driven culture

• Explain how cloud technology enables data to be applied in new ways

4. Identify common Google Cloud solutions for data management

• Recognize examples of structured and unstructured data
  • Databases
  • Office Files
  • Pictures
  • AV Files

5. Identify common Google Cloud solutions for smart analytics

• Articulate the business benefits of storing data in the cloud
  • Capital Expenditure
    • Operational Expenditure
    • Data Resiliency
  • Apply appropriate business use cases for databases, data warehouses, and data lakes
    • OLTP
      • Cloud SQL
      • Cloud Spanner
    • OLAP
      • BIG QUERY
    • No SQL Database
      • Cloud Fire Store
        • Native Mode
        • Data Store Mode
    • Cloud Bigtable
    • Memory store
  • Explain the benefits of Google Cloud data products
    • Looker
    • Big Query
    • Cloud Spanner
    • Cloud SQL
    • Cloud Storage

6. Identify Google Cloud’s solutions for machine learning and AI

• Define artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML)
• Outline the importance of data quality in ML prediction accuracy
• Describe Google Cloud’s differentiators about AI and machine learning
  • Vertex AI
  • TPU- Tensor Processing Unit
• Recognize the ways customers can use Google Cloud’s AI and ML solutions to create business   value
• Vision API provides out-of-the-box pre-trained models to extract data from images
• AutoML provides the ability to train models
• BigQuery Machine Learning provides support for limited models and SQL interface

Section 3: Infrastructure and Application Modernization with Google Cloud (approximately 30% of the exam)

  7. Learn what modernizing IT infrastructure with Google Cloud means

• Explain why legacy infrastructure struggles to deliver modern services to customers
• Explain the benefits of modernizing infrastructure with cloud technology
  • On-demand computing
  • Pay-as-you-use
  • Scalability and Elasticity
  • High Availability and Resiliency
  • Security
• Differentiate between hybrid and multi-cloud infrastructures
• Differentiate between virtual machines, containers, and serverless computing within business use cases
• Identify the Google Cloud solutions that help businesses modernize their infrastructure

8. Understand modernizing applications with Google Cloud

• Describe the business drivers for modernizing applications
• Describe the benefits of using cloud-native applications
• Apply the appropriate change pattern to different business use cases
• Explain the benefits of Google Kubernetes Engine, Anthos, and App Engine for application  development
  • Containers in seconds
  • Cloud Run for Anthos
  • App Engine
    • Standard
    • Flexible

9. Understand the value of APIs

• Explain how application programming interfaces (APIs) can modernize legacy systems
• Describe how APIs can create new business value
  • Real time data fetch and display
  • APIs decouple the client
  • Single point of entry with APIs

• Explain the benefits of Apigee
  • Secure APIs
  • Publish APIs
  • Analyse APIs
  • Monitor APIs
  • Monetize APIs
  • Developer portal
  • Manage microservices

Section 4: Understanding Google Cloud Security and Operations (approximately 30% of the exam)

10. Describe financial governance in the cloud and Google Cloud’s recommended best practices for            effective cloud cost management

• Explain how adopting cloud technology affects the total cost of ownership (TCO)
  • Switch off/Spindle  the resource when not in use
• Identify the cost management strategy needed in each business scenario
  • Role-Based Support provides more predictable rates and a flexible configuration. Although they are legacy, the exam does cover these.
  • Enterprise Support provides the fastest case response times and a dedicated Technical Account Management (TAM) contact who helps you execute a Google Cloud strategy.

11. Describe a cloud security approach and Google Cloud security benefits

• Define fundamental cloud security terms, including privacy, availability, security, and  control
• Explain what is meant by a shared responsibility model
  • Security of the Cloud is Google Cloud’s responsibility
  • Security on the Cloud depends on the services used and is shared between Google Cloud and the Customer
• Describe the security benefits of using Google Cloud
  • Encryption by default while in transit & at rest
  • Compliant with all data protection standard
  • Transparency
• Identify today’s top cybersecurity challenges and threats to data privacy
• Demonstrate how organizations can control and manage access to cloud resources
  • Cloud Identity & Access Management provides administrators the ability to manage cloud resources centrally by controlling who can take what action on specific resources.
    • Service Accounts
      • Default Service Accounts
      • User managed Service Accounts
    • Principle of least privilege
      • Separation Of Duties
    • Managed Keys
      • Google Managed Keys
      • Customer managed Keys
  • Google Cloud Directory Sync enables administrators to synchronize users, groups, and other data from an Active Directory/LDAP service to their Google Cloud domain directory.

12. Explain how IT operations need to adapt to thrive in the cloud

• Differentiate service availability requirements in the cloud versus in on-premises environments
  • Private Cloud
  • Public Cloud
  • Hybrid Cloud
• Describe the operational challenges that DevOps solves
  • CI/CD
  • Cloud Source repository
  • Container Registry
  • Cloud Build
  • Jenkins
  • Spinnaker
•  Apply the goals of site reliability engineering (SRE) to different business use cases

13. Identify Google Cloud solutions for cloud resource monitoring and application performance          management

• Explain the potential impact of unexpected or prolonged downtime
  • Data Availability
    • Regional , Zonal Availability
  • Define monitoring, logging, and observability within the context of cloud operations

• Cloud monitoring
  • Cloud Logging
    • Cloud Audit Logs
    • Error Reporting
    • Cloud Debugger
    • Cloud Trace
    • Cloud profiler

• Identify the Google Cloud resource monitoring and maintenance tools.
  • SLO monitoring
    • Custom metrics
    • Ops Agent          
    • Logging integration        
    • Alerting
    • Uptime monitoring