Google Cloud Professional Cloud Architect (PCA)

What you will master

• Org/IAM design: hierarchy, policies, service accounts and least privilege
• Networking: VPC strategy, shared VPC concepts, connectivity patterns
• Compute decisions: GKE vs VMs vs serverless—trade-offs and operations
• Data platform choices: managed services and architecture fit
• Reliability: HA/DR concepts and operational readiness
• Exam technique: read requirements, choose safest scalable architecture

Curriculum outline

Labs & practice

• Case drills: requirement → architecture → risks + mitigations
• Mock exams focusing on best-solution framing and justification
• Hands-on labs: IAM/service accounts, networking basics, optional GKE basics
• Architecture review templates: document decisions for stakeholders

Who this course is for

• Cloud architects considering multi-cloud roles
• Engineers wanting strong GCP architecture capability
• Candidates preparing for case-based professional exam style

Prerequisites

• General cloud fundamentals (networking, identity, compute concepts)
• Some familiarity with containers helpful but not mandatory
• Able to reason about trade-offs and constraints

Outcomes

• Repeatable architecture workflow for PCA scenarios
• Improved speed at prioritizing requirements
• Confidence defending designs with cost/security/reliability logic
• Practical templates reusable in real projects