GCP: Associate Cloud Engineer
Prepare for the Google Cloud Associate Cloud Engineer exam with paired teaching lessons and hands-on GCP labs covering all four exam domains.
About This Course
Comprehensive preparation for the Google Cloud Associate Cloud Engineer certification exam. This course covers all four exam domains: setting up a cloud solution environment, planning and implementing cloud solutions, ensuring successful operation, and configuring access and security. Each topic includes both a teaching lesson with an AI instructor and a hands-on lab where you practice in a real GCP environment. You will deploy and manage Compute Engine instances, GKE clusters, Cloud Run services, Cloud Storage, networking, IAM, and more building the practical skills required to pass the ACE exam and work confidently as a cloud engineer.
Course Curriculum
38 Lessons
GCP Resource Hierarchy and Organization Policies
Learn how GCP organizes resources into a hierarchy of Organization, Folders, and Projects, and how organization policies enforce governance controls across the hierarchy.
GCP Resource Hierarchy and Organization Policies - Lab Exercises
Practice creating folders, projects, and applying organization policies to enforce governance controls across the GCP resource hierarchy.
IAM, Cloud Identity, and API Management
Learn how to grant IAM roles, manage users and groups in Cloud Identity, enable APIs, and control access across GCP projects.
IAM, Cloud Identity, and API Management - Lab Exercises
Practice granting IAM roles to members, managing Cloud Identity users and groups, and enabling APIs within a GCP project.
Billing Configuration and Cost Management
Learn how to create and manage billing accounts, link projects, configure budgets and alerts, and export billing data for cost analysis.
Billing Configuration and Cost Management - Lab Exercises
Practice creating billing accounts, linking projects, setting up budget alerts, and configuring billing exports to Cloud Storage and BigQuery.
Cloud Observability Setup and Quota Management
Learn how to set up Google Cloud Observability products, assess project quotas, and request quota increases to ensure your cloud solutions can scale.
Cloud Observability Setup and Quota Management - Lab Exercises
Practice provisioning Cloud Monitoring workspaces, configuring uptime checks, viewing project quotas, and submitting quota increase requests.
Compute Engine: Instances, Disks, and Autoscaling
Learn how to select compute options, launch VM instances, choose storage types, configure managed instance groups with autoscaling, and use Spot VMs and custom machine types.
Compute Engine: Instances, Disks, and Autoscaling - Lab Exercises
Practice launching VM instances with custom machine types, configuring persistent disks, creating instance templates, and setting up managed instance groups with autoscaling.
Google Kubernetes Engine: Clusters and Deployments
Learn how to deploy and manage GKE clusters with Autopilot, regional, and private configurations, deploy containerized applications, and configure kubectl access.
Google Kubernetes Engine: Clusters and Deployments - Lab Exercises
Practice deploying a GKE Autopilot cluster, configuring kubectl, deploying a containerized application, and managing node pools and pod autoscaling.
Serverless Compute: Cloud Run and Cloud Functions
Learn how to deploy applications to Cloud Run and Cloud Functions, handle event-driven workloads with Pub/Sub and Eventarc, and compare serverless options for different use cases.
Serverless Compute: Cloud Run and Cloud Functions - Lab Exercises
Practice deploying a containerized application to Cloud Run, configuring autoscaling, and deploying an event-driven Cloud Function triggered by Pub/Sub.
Cloud Storage: Classes, Buckets, and Data Loading
Learn how to choose between Cloud Storage classes (Standard, Nearline, Coldline, Archive), create and configure buckets, load data from multiple sources, and maintain multi-region redundancy.
Cloud Storage: Classes, Buckets, and Data Loading - Lab Exercises
Practice creating Cloud Storage buckets with different storage classes, configuring uniform bucket-level access, uploading objects, and using the Storage Transfer Service.
Managed Data Services: Cloud SQL, BigQuery, Firestore, and More
Learn how to choose and deploy GCP managed data services including Cloud SQL, BigQuery, Firestore, Spanner, Bigtable, AlloyDB, Pub/Sub, Dataflow, and Memorystore.
Managed Data Services: Cloud SQL, BigQuery, Firestore, and More - Lab Exercises
Practice creating a Cloud SQL instance, importing data, executing SQL queries, creating a BigQuery dataset, loading data, and running analytical queries.
VPC Networks, Subnets, and Cloud NGFW
Learn how to create VPCs with custom and shared configurations, design subnet layouts, and configure Cloud Next Generation Firewall policies with ingress and egress rules.
VPC Networks, Subnets, and Cloud NGFW - Lab Exercises
Practice creating a custom mode VPC with subnets, configuring Cloud Next Generation Firewall policies with ingress and egress rules, and using secure tags in firewall rules.
Network Connectivity and Load Balancing
Learn how to establish network connectivity with Cloud VPN, VPC Network Peering, and Cloud Interconnect, and choose and deploy appropriate GCP load balancers for different traffic patterns.
Network Connectivity and Load Balancing - Lab Exercises
Practice deploying an HTTP(S) load balancer with a managed instance group backend, configuring health checks, and setting up VPC Network Peering between two VPCs.
Terraform and Infrastructure as Code on GCP
Learn how to use Terraform and other IaC tools (Config Connector, Fabric FAST, Helm) to deploy GCP infrastructure, manage state, version configurations, and execute updates safely.
Terraform and Infrastructure as Code on GCP - Lab Exercises
Practice writing Terraform configurations to provision GCP resources, manage Terraform state, apply updates, and use the google provider to deploy a VPC, subnet, and Compute Engine instance.
Managing Compute: VM Operations, GKE Management, and Cloud Run Traffic
Learn how to manage running Compute Engine instances, work with snapshots and images, manage GKE node pools and workloads, deploy Cloud Run revisions, and configure traffic splitting.
Managing Compute: VM Operations, GKE Management, and Cloud Run Traffic - Lab Exercises
Practice creating VM snapshots, managing GKE node pools, deploying new Cloud Run revisions, and configuring traffic splitting between revisions for canary deployments.
Managing Storage Operations and Database Backup
Learn how to manage Cloud Storage objects and lifecycle policies, query data from Cloud SQL, BigQuery, Bigtable, and Firestore, perform database backups and restores, and estimate storage costs.
Managing Storage Operations and Database Backup - Lab Exercises
Practice configuring object lifecycle management rules on Cloud Storage buckets, performing Cloud SQL database backups and point-in-time restores, and querying BigQuery datasets.
Managing Networking: Subnets, Static IPs, DNS, and NAT
Learn how to add and expand subnets, reserve static IP addresses, add custom static routes, and configure Cloud DNS and Cloud NAT for internet connectivity without external IPs.
Managing Networking: Subnets, Static IPs, DNS, and NAT - Lab Exercises
Practice adding a subnet to an existing VPC, expanding its IP range, reserving static external and internal IP addresses, and configuring Cloud DNS records and Cloud NAT for private instance internet access.
Cloud Monitoring: Alerts, Custom Metrics, and Diagnostics
Learn how to create Cloud Monitoring alerts, define custom metrics, use Cloud Trace, Cloud Profiler, and Query Insights for diagnostics, deploy Ops Agent, and configure Managed Prometheus.
Cloud Monitoring: Alerts, Custom Metrics, and Diagnostics - Lab Exercises
Practice creating Cloud Monitoring alerting policies based on resource metrics, defining custom metrics from application logs, building dashboards, deploying the Ops Agent, and using Cloud Trace for application diagnostics.
Cloud Logging: Log Management, Routing, and Audit Logs
Learn how to view and filter Cloud Logging entries, configure log buckets and routers, export logs to BigQuery and external systems, configure audit logs, and use Active Assist.
Cloud Logging: Log Management, Routing, and Audit Logs - Lab Exercises
Practice viewing and filtering Cloud Logging entries, creating log sinks to export logs to Cloud Storage and BigQuery, configuring log-based metrics, and enabling and reviewing audit logs.
IAM Policies, Role Types, and Custom Roles
Learn how to view and create IAM policies, understand the difference between basic, predefined, and custom roles, and design custom IAM roles following the principle of least privilege.
IAM Policies, Role Types, and Custom Roles - Lab Exercises
Practice creating IAM policy bindings, comparing basic, predefined, and custom roles, designing and deploying a custom IAM role with minimum required permissions, and testing role access.
Service Accounts: Creation, Impersonation, and Workload Identity
Learn how to create and manage service accounts, apply minimum permissions, assign service accounts to resources, configure impersonation, manage short-lived credentials, and use Workload Identity for GKE.
Service Accounts: Creation, Impersonation, and Workload Identity - Lab Exercises
Practice creating service accounts, assigning them to Compute Engine instances, configuring service account impersonation, generating short-lived credentials, and configuring GKE Workload Identity Federation.