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MAGDA JARY: Welcome to "Grow Your Cloud Readiness
with the Google Cloud Digital Leader Certification" session.
My name is Magda, and I'm the Global Lead on the Google Cloud
certification Go-To Market team.
And joining me today is Nasser, Cloud Training Business Lead.
Let's take a look at our agenda today.
We'll first introduce the Cloud Digital Leader exam.
We'll then look at what to expect on the exam.
We'll cover some preparation tips.
And we'll also get some insights from the expert.
So let's get started.
What is a Google Cloud Digital Leader?
A Cloud Digital Leader can distinguish and evaluate
the various capabilities of Google Cloud's core products
and services and how they can be used to achieve
desired business goals.
A Cloud Digital Leader is well-versed in basic cloud
concepts and can demonstrate a broad application
of cloud computing knowledge in a variety of applications.
The Cloud Digital Leader exam is job role-independent.
The exam assesses the knowledge and skills
of individuals who want to or are required
to understand the purpose and application of Google Cloud
products.
How to prepare for Cloud Digital Leader?
Here is a recommended learning path.
We do recommend you start with the review of the exam guide
to really have a good sense of what's covered in the exam.
Then we have brand-new training for Cloud Digital Leader,
four modules that we recommend for you to take.
And we also recommend some additional resources,
including sample questions.
A little bit more about the certification.
As I mentioned, the exam guide is
the source of truth for topics covered in the exam.
And then completing the Cloud Digital Leader training
is not necessarily sufficient for exam success.
You really need to assure that you
are very well-versed in the topics covered in the exam
guide.
Many of the exam questions are scenario-based,
and the exam questions test your ability to apply knowledge.
This is still a new exam, so the list of readiness resources
will expand over time.
At the end of the exam, we do not provide any feedback.
And then there are also retake policies that apply.
And you can check them out on the external exam website.
So let's take a look at the certification overview.
As mentioned, the exam guide is your source
of truth for all the domains covered by the exam.
Many of the exam questions are scenario-based,
and the exam questions test your ability to apply knowledge.
This is still a relatively new exam,
so the list of readiness resources
will expand over time.
There is no exam feedback provided
upon taking of the exam.
And then there are retake policies that apply.
And you can check them out on the external exam website.
Let's take a look at the exam details.
It's a 90-minute long exam.
The registration fee is $99.
It's available in English.
It's multiple choice and multiple select.
And when it comes to the exam delivery method,
you can take the online proctored exam
from a remote location or take on-site proctored exam
at a testing center.
There are no prerequisites.
And we definitely recommend you check out the exam website
as well as the exam guide.
Let's take a look now at the new available training
for Cloud Digital Leader.
This path consists of the following module--
first, Introduction to Digital Transformation
with Google Cloud; then Innovating
with Data in Google Cloud; the third one, Infrastructure
and Application Modernization with Google Cloud;
and then the final module, Understanding Google Cloud
Security and Operations.
And under the following link, you can find this learning path
and access and complete.
So we hope you enjoy it.
So now let's have a conversation with Nasser
about his experience of the exam.
Nasser is a long-term Googler, over 11 years
of technical experience with Google
Cloud in his previous customer engineering roles.
And now he's the regional training business lead.
Welcome again, Nasser.
NASSER AHMED: Hi, Magda.
Great to be here.
MAGDA JARY: We are delighted to have you here.
Could you please tell us about your motivation
to approach the exam?
NASSER AHMED: So the Cloud Digital Leader Certification
is very much focused around business users and very much
a sweet spot for the folks who are
responsible for digital transformation
in any organization.
So that being the foundation, that's the kind of place
I started from a study perspective
for this particular exam.
MAGDA JARY: Thank you, Nasser.
So what was your preparation for this exam like?
NASSER AHMED: So I took a slightly different approach.
When it came to the exam, I set the date for my exam
well in advance and reverse-planned my study time
week by week leading right up to the exam date,
so planning every single segment of learning I wanted to do.
I did three to four weeks, which is kind of advised
if you break up the learning between 18 and 16
hours and roughly between three or four hours
a week of learning.
And depending on your experience,
you might need more or less.
I think the folks who are not so exposed or not
so experienced might need more time,
and those who are really proficient
and have got some foundational knowledge,
they'd probably need a little less time.
The other thing as well is to go through all on-demand learning.
That's highly recommended.
There's six hours of study.
It should take no more than a day or two
to go through things, more if you're pausing and taking notes
like I did.
So I went through the on-demand content
and really took digital notes, so not even
scribbling stuff down, but actual digital notes.
And don't stop there.
So the idea here is to actually go through the exam guide
as well, which is, in fact, the source of truth for what
will come up in the exam.
Lastly, go through all the sample exam questions.
Again, highly recommended, because it'll
give you a feel for the language that's being used,
the kind of questions that are being asked,
and really gets you into the right zone when
it comes to answering questions, and being quite
quick with regard to understanding what is being
asked in a particular question, and getting to, obviously,
the right answer.
So the other point to make as well
is, you're not just learning for the exam.
You're actually learning for your own development
and for your own knowledge as well.
So very important.
MAGDA JARY: Wonderful.
Thank you, Nasser.
Any tips and tricks you'd like to share with the audience
today?
NASSER AHMED: Yeah, I've got quite a few tips and tricks.
So the exam is 90 minutes, multiple choice.
So when taking the exam, have a strategy in place.
The 90 minutes will go really, really fast.
So in theory, you should be able to allocate a set number
of minutes for each question.
So roughly, it might be between 90 and 100 seconds
for each question.
That's time to read, time to process, look at the answers,
and really get an idea of what you think
is going to be the right answer, and then
giving you some time at the end to check your answers as well.
So that's the other important thing.
So you want to check things over at the end
and make sure any questions that you've left or skipped,
you can go back to sort of reference back again.
I'd try and cycle through all the questions at the start
to read through them, to get a feel for what's being asked,
the wording, the style of questions,
and the cognitive load, so how much they're
putting into the questions.
I'd also try and answer the easy ones first.
So some of the low-hanging fruit, the one-liners,
you can get through those reasonably
quickly, and get some confidence and build your confidence
there.
I would also highlight the questions
that you think you're not too sure on so you can refer back
to those at the end.
Remember, I said allocating time for each question
means that you won't run over time,
and you're actually giving yourself some time at the end
there to really review all of the things--
either the questions that you didn't answer
or the ones that you marked that you wanted to refer back to.
Some of the questions are multiple answer.
So please do read the question slowly and really understand
carefully what is being asked of you.
And yeah.
It's a real-- there's an art to it.
And enough preparation, your study
will pay for itself with regard to when
you're answering questions that you're not too sure on.
So yeah, taking that time out is really useful
to practice and look at the exam questions.
MAGDA JARY: Thank you, Nasser.
These are all really great tips.
So could you please cover some of the topics
you would like our audience to really pay attention to
during the exam or as they prepare for the exam?
NASSER AHMED: So beyond the core benefits of Cloud,
such as on-demand, self-service, access, to infrastructure
and services, or the economics of things like elasticity
and paying for services by the second,
there's a lot to consider when it
comes to what you need to know on top of the core knowledge.
We'll briefly touch on a few topics
to give you a feel for the depth of what's
required for this particular certification.
And I'll go through some key concepts which
I think I'll recommend for all who are looking at this Cloud
Digital Leader Cert, and things that you're going
to need to be familiar with.
So understanding the various cloud migration options
is a topic on the exam.
So you'll need a clear understanding
of the various migration options and their merits.
So for example, things like lift and shift
is good to move to the cloud, but doesn't necessarily
take advantage of cloud in its entirety.
You still have to manage virtual hardware, VMs, OSes, et
cetera, so just giving you a very basic example there.
So understanding the multiple sort of product options
in a particular customer scenario
is key there, so how the products possibly interplay.
And not just what each product does or its definition.
So when you're asked a question, it might not just
be about things like recalling, but it'll
be about a particular scenario that you're having
to answer a question for.
So this is where case studies are also helpful.
I think there's links in the exam guide to those case
studies, which are very useful.
You should go through them.
We've started with migration, because that's really
a common request that we get from customers, because we
want to try to meet them where they are.
So cloud identity is critical to understanding Identity
and Access Management, or IAM.
And there are many subtopics under Cloud Identity,
which I'd encourage you to go through and look at.
You've got to be familiar with Cloud Identity,
as it's key to running a smooth cloud operation.
In fact, one of the on-demand sessions
is about cloud operations, which again,
go through some of the core elements around operations.
But identity and access is one of those elements
that you need to be really familiar with.
You might get asked about certain reporting
and analytics, which helps sort of business users
understand who's accessed information when, how,
and so forth.
So it's very critical from a security, governance,
and privacy perspective.
So Cloud Identity is one of those core topics
that I encourage you to go a little bit deeper on.
So cloud networking is a massive topic in its own right.
And we could spend the entire day on that easily.
But we don't have that luxury.
So you've got to make sure that you're
really familiar with the sort of networking connectivity options
based on customers' requirements--
their speed, their privacy requirements, et cetera.
There's some great documentation on the cloud.google.com
website.
It's also useful to understand how networking
is done in the cloud, because it's
very different to on-premises networking.
And that's commonly referred to as Software-Defined Networking,
or SDN, which is a step up from sort
of traditional physical networking,
as I mentioned, a lot more capability functions,
features there that you need to be at least familiar with, as I
said, at the basics/fundamentals level.
There's no need to go into too much detail
there, because as I mentioned, networking is a massive topic.
But understanding the basic networking options
and the different scenarios explained in the slide
above are probably as much as you need to do.
Lastly, the console structure is critical to understanding
Google Cloud Platform.
So this is where you're actually going in and looking
at the console hierarchy, so at the org domain level,
at the project folder, and resource level.
So you really know what's going on there in terms
of how things are set up.
I'd encourage you to look at the console structure
to look at Cloud Billing with enough detail,
sort of essential for running any cloud operation.
Finally, the exam shouldn't be the end of your learning.
So be sure to continue your learning.
Google Cloud develops on a--
sort of releases on a monthly if not weekly basis.
There's something new there that needs
to be understood and learned.
And I think the more you know as a business user,
the more useful it's going to be for you.
Not necessarily at that detail level.
But at the decision maker, directing a cloud project
level, it's going to be really critical
for you to be able to help drive a transformation
product in the right direction.
So always new things to learn.
And as I said, great to contribute
to your own self-development and to your own career.
So that would be my final element and final comment
to make there.
Thank you.
MAGDA JARY: Thank you so much, Nasser,
for the technical deep dive as well as for the great wrap-up.
This is really it for today.
We really hope you learned something new.
And we wish you best of luck with your certification
preparation and the Cloud Digital Leader exam.
Thank you and bye-bye.
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