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Passing the GCP Professional Cloud Developer exam | 8h/week (4h videos, 2h labs, 1h questions, 1h project) | Exam + Working Project |
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PATH_CERTIFICATION.md

🎓 Certification Path: Exam-First 12-Week Plan

🎯 Strategy

Goal: Pass the GCP Professional Cloud Developer exam while progressively moving FlightScanner to GCP. Constraint: 8 hours/week max. Exam priority > Project priority.

Time Split

Activity Hours/Week Purpose
Videos 4h Content coverage
Labs (Qwiklabs) 2h Guided hands-on
Practice Questions 1h Exam pattern recognition
FlightScanner Migration 1h Real-world application

📅 The 12-Week Migration Journey

Month 1: Foundation + Deploy fs-service (Weeks 1-4)

Week 1: Google Cloud Fundamentals

Course: Google Cloud Fundamentals: Core Infrastructure Videos:

  • Introduction to Google Cloud Platform
  • Resources & Access in the Cloud
  • Virtual Machines & Networks in the Cloud
  • Storage in the Cloud
  • Containers in the Cloud
  • Applications in the Cloud
  • Developing, Deploying and Monitoring in the Cloud
  • Big Data and Machine Learning in the Cloud

Task: Deploy fs-service to Cloud Run

  1. Add Jib to pom.xml.
  2. Push container to Artifact Registry.
  3. Deploy to Cloud Run (allow unauthenticated). Deliverable: https://fs-service-xxx.run.app/flights returns data.

Week 2: App Development Foundations

Course: Developing Applications with Google Cloud: Foundations Videos:

  • Best practices for cloud application development (1 & 2)
  • Handling authentication and authorization
  • Using Secret Manager
  • Getting started with Google Cloud development
  • Cloud APIs and the Google Cloud SDK
  • The Google Cloud CLI
  • Compute options for your application (Compute Engine, GKE, Cloud Run)

Task: Health Checks + Graceful Shutdown

  1. Add /health/live and /health/ready endpoints.
  2. Configure startup, liveness, and readiness probes in Cloud Run.
  3. Add @PreDestroy hook for graceful shutdown logging. Deliverable: Graceful shutdown log message appears on instance termination.

Week 3: Cloud Run & Containerization

Course: Developing Applications with Cloud Run on Google Cloud: Fundamentals Videos:

  • Fundamentals of Cloud Run
  • Container lifecycle & Autoscaling
  • Service Identity and Authentication
  • Application Development, Testing, and Integration
  • Managing service deployments and revisions
  • Integrating with Google Cloud services

Task: Load Balancing + Traffic Splitting

  1. Deploy a new revision of fs-service (e.g., change a header).
  2. Split traffic 90% (old) / 10% (new) using gcloud. Deliverable: curl loop shows mixed responses.

Week 4: Cloud Run Functions & Event-Driven

Course: Developing Applications with Cloud Run Functions Videos:

  • Introduction to Cloud Run functions
  • Calling and connecting Cloud Run functions
  • Triggering functions
  • Connecting Cloud Run functions with workflows
  • Integrating functions with cloud databases

Task: Replace RabbitMQ with Pub/Sub

  1. Create Pub/Sub topic flight-events.
  2. Update fs-service to publish to this topic (replace RabbitMQ code).
  3. Create Push subscription targeting fs-warehouse endpoint. Deliverable: Message published from service arrives at warehouse via Pub/Sub.

Month 2: Data Layer (Weeks 5-8)

Week 5: Storage & Databases

Course: Developing Applications with Google Cloud: Foundations (continued) Videos:

  • Storing Application Data (Lab/Module)
  • Cloud Storage use cases
  • Cloud SQL vs Cloud Spanner vs Firestore

Task: Cloud SQL Setup

  1. Create Cloud SQL PostgreSQL instance (Private IP preferred).
  2. Configure Cloud SQL Auth Proxy for local connection. Deliverable: Connect to remote DB from local machine via proxy.

Week 6: Containerized Application Development

Course: Developing Containerized Applications on Google Cloud Videos:

  • Introduction to Containers on Google Cloud
  • Building and Packaging Container Images
  • Storing Images in Artifact Registry
  • deploying Applications to Google Kubernetes Engine (Start watching)

Task: Connect fs-warehouse to Cloud SQL

  1. Configure fs-warehouse (Quarkus) to use Cloud SQL JDBC connection.
  2. Configure connection pooling (HikariCP). Deliverable: Data persists across Cloud Run restarts.

Week 7: Caching & Performance

Course: Developing Applications with Google Cloud: Foundations (continued) Videos:

  • Monitoring and performance tuning
  • Managing performance
  • Google Cloud Observability
  • Logging and metrics

Task: Add Memorystore (Redis)

  1. Create Memorystore Redis instance.
  2. Configure Serverless VPC Access connector.
  3. Implement Cache-Aside pattern in fs-service for flight searches. Deliverable: Repeat requests show significantly lower latency.

Week 8: Kubernetes & Orchestration (Part 1)

Course: Deploy Kubernetes Applications on Google Cloud Videos:

  • Introduction to Google Kubernetes Engine
  • Kubernetes Architecture: Pods, Services, Deployments
  • Creating GKE Clusters
  • Deploying Workloads to GKE

Task: Signed URLs for Uploads

  1. Create GCS bucket.
  2. Implement getSignedUrl endpoint in fs-service.
  3. Test upload with curl -X PUT. Deliverable: File uploaded directly to bucket using generated URL.

Month 3: Production Readiness (Weeks 9-12)

Week 9: Security & Identity

Course: Developing Applications with Cloud Run on Google Cloud (Revisit Security Modules) Videos:

  • Service Accounts and Identity
  • Principle of Least Privilege
  • Implementing Least Privilege IAM Policy Bindings
  • Secrets and Environment Variables

Task: Security Audit (Workload Identity)

  1. Create Service Accounts in GCP.
  2. Configure Workload Identity (Bind K8s SA to GCP SA).
  3. Remove any JSON key files; use GoogleCredentials.getApplicationDefault(). Deliverable: Application works with NO credential files.

Week 10: Observability & Tracing

Course: Developing Applications with Google Cloud: Foundations (Observability Module) Videos:

  • Google Cloud Observability (Deep Dive)
  • Cloud Trace and Cloud Profiler
  • Error Reporting
  • Debugging Applications

Task: Observability (Tracing)

  1. Add OpenTelemetry dependencies.
  2. Propagate trace context in Pub/Sub messages. Deliverable: Single trace in Cloud Trace spanning service -> queue -> warehouse.

Week 11: AI Integration & Modern Development

Course: Streamline App Development with Gemini Code Assist Videos:

  • Gemini Code Assist: AI-powered code generation
  • Accelerate App Development with Gemini CLI
  • Integrating Applications with Gemini 1.0 Pro

Task: CI/CD (Cloud Build)

  1. Create cloudbuild.yaml.
  2. Steps: Test -> Jib Build -> Scan -> Deploy. Deliverable: Git push triggers deployment.

Week 12: Final Review & Exam Prep

Course: Review weak areas + Practice Exams Focus:

  • Re-watch complex topics (Networking, IAM)
  • Complete official sample questions
  • Take full practice exams

Task: Final Review

  1. Final end-to-end test.
  2. Ensure all 12-Factor principles are met. Deliverable: Validated, running architecture.

📊 Progress Tracker

  • Week 1: Cloud Run
  • Week 2: Reliability
  • Week 3: Traffic Splitting
  • Week 4: Pub/Sub
  • Week 5: Cloud SQL Setup
  • Week 6: SQL Integration
  • Week 7: Redis Cache
  • Week 8: Signed URLs
  • Week 9: Workload Identity
  • Week 10: Tracing
  • Week 11: CI/CD
  • Week 12: Done

📝 Rules of Engagement

  1. Practice First: Practice questions (20/week) are mandatory.
  2. Time Box: Deep dives are limited to 1 hour. If stuck, stop and move to theory.
  3. Exam Focus: This project is a learning tool, not a production deliverable. Prioritize exam topics over code perfection.

📚 Study Resources

Official

Community

Practice Questions

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