Got my Google ACE certification today + some course feedback. :)

Congratulations, Leonard! 🎉👏 I’m so glad all of our courses were so helpful to you! 😃👍  And I totally do see how seeing the AWS SA-A perspective on things could strengthen your understanding of how Google Cloud works, too.  I’m sure others will find it valuable to read about your journey, as well, so I’m linking this into my ACE Exam Report Mega-Thread. 

I appreciate your feedback on adding little quizzes to the course.  That’s something I do want to do, but I just have to balance the time that will take against all of the other things to do–like updating or adding other new content.  But your vote for it has bumped it a bit further up my list. 🙂

Next, about your road ahead.  It would definitely be valuable to get the hands-on experience of setting up those three projects you mentioned.  That said, the Pro-level architecture certs are each an order of magnitude beyond the corresponding Associate-level ones.  If you haven’t already watched it, I strongly recommend that you watch the entirety of my Cert Prep Guide course–regardless of what cloud or cert you eventually focus on next (even though its title mentions AWS).  Among other things, that course should give you lots of insight about how to both structure your learning and do it more efficiently.

In any case, if you are wanting to dig deeper into AWS, I highly recommend getting at least the other Associate certs, too, before aiming at Pro.  As I also mention in the Cert Prep Guide, they are important stepping stones toward that larger goal.  Unfortunately, Google does not have helpful intermediate certs–so although some might say that GCP’s PCA is in some ways easier than AWS’s SA-Pro, the PCA represents a much bigger single leap from its previous (ACE) cert.  Since you got lot of value out of building your foundation on both clouds in parallel, I think this might be a good plan for you: (Cert Prep Guide first, if you haven’t already, then…) Start by going through my PCA course without intending to sit the exam but with the purpose of more deeply understanding the business side of cloud architecture and the technical fundamentals you’ll need to get covered.  This should frame your thinking as you do everything that follows.  Then take a step back from the architecture to do the AWS Developer and SysOps Associate certs–both take the courses and do the exams.  Then consider going through some AWS Specialty and/or DevOps Pro courses, and only take those exams if you want to.  Then, since you’re already so deep into the AWS side, at this point, knock out the AWS SA-Pro course and exam.  After that, come back to the GCP PCA: redo my PCA course in its entirety and use that to dig deeper into some GCP products that you’ve not yet dealt with.  That should put you in a good position to close out your goal with both AWS and GCP Professional Architect certs!  Phew!  I know it’s a lot, but it’s also a very valuable goal you’ve set!  You can do it!

Cheers!

Mattias