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Google Cloud Fundamentals and Certification

Aug 15, 2025

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Overview

This comprehensive lecture series covers essential Google Cloud fundamentals, certification paths, key cloud concepts, core services, IAM, networking, compute, storage, containers, databases, big data, machine learning, monitoring, and hands-on demos—preparing you to become an Associate Cloud Engineer.

Google Cloud Certification Overview

  • Google Cloud offers Associate (Cloud Engineer) and Professional-level certifications in multiple specialties.
  • The Associate Cloud Engineer exam covers deploying, monitoring, and maintaining Google Cloud projects.
  • Professional certifications include Architect, Security Engineer, Network Engineer, Data Engineer, ML Engineer, Developer, DevOps, and Collaboration Engineer.
  • The Associate exam is 2 hours, $125 USD, with 50 multiple choice/multiple answer questions.
  • Recommended: 6+ months experience for Associate and 1+ year GCP experience for Professional level.
  • Certifications help set learning milestones, stay current, and can boost career and salary prospects.

Course Resources & Setup

  • Course files, scripts, and lesson resources are provided in an up-to-date GitHub repository.
  • Always use Git to clone/update the repo for latest files (not Download ZIP).
  • Use VS Code or your preferred code editor for managing course files.
  • Practice exams are available at the course platform; complete all lectures before attempting practice exams.

Cloud Computing Fundamentals

  • Cloud computing delivers shared, on-demand computing resources (servers, storage, networking) via the internet.
  • Five cloud characteristics: On-demand self-service, broad network access, resource pooling, rapid elasticity, measured service.
  • Four deployment models: Public, Private, Hybrid, and Multi-cloud.
  • Service models: IaaS (Compute Engine), PaaS (App Engine), SaaS (Gmail, G Suite), with further models like FaaS and CaaS.

Google Cloud Infrastructure

  • Google Cloud uses global regions, zones, and multi-regions for redundancy, durability, high availability, and low latency.
  • Requests are routed via Google’s private backbone and subsea cables for minimum latency.

Core GCP Services Overview

  • Compute options: Compute Engine (IaaS), Kubernetes Engine (CaaS), App Engine (PaaS), Cloud Functions/Run (FaaS/serverless).
  • Storage: Cloud Storage (object), Filestore (file/NFS), Persistent Disks (block).
  • Databases: Cloud SQL (managed SQL), Spanner (global SQL), Bigtable, Datastore/Firestore, Memorystore (NoSQL/in-memory).
  • Networking: VPC (virtual networks), firewall rules, routes, load balancing, Cloud DNS, VPN, and Direct Interconnect.
  • Resource hierarchy: Organization > Folders > Projects > Resources (granular IAM applies throughout).

Identity & Access Management (IAM)

  • IAM governs who (members) has what access (roles) to which resources via policies.
  • IAM roles: Primitive (Owner/Editor/Viewer), Predefined (resource-specific), Custom (user-defined permissions).
  • Principle of least privilege: Assign only necessary permissions.
  • Service accounts are non-human accounts used by applications or resources.

Working with GCP

  • Free Tier ($300, 12 months) and Always Free (ongoing limited resources) for hands-on practice.
  • Setting up two-step verification and proper account security is highly recommended.
  • Use GCP Console (GUI), Cloud Shell (browser-based CLI), and Cloud SDK/gcloud CLI for management and automation.
  • Cloud Shell and SDK offer full access to gcloud, gsutil, bq, kubectl, and code editors.

Cost Management & Billing

  • Billing accounts are linked to projects; payments profile manages payment methods.
  • Use budgets and alerts to monitor spend and prevent overruns; automate responses with Pub/Sub.
  • Committed use and sustained use discounts lower costs for predictable workloads.
  • Export detailed billing data to BigQuery for analysis.

Networking Refresher & VPC

  • IP addressing: IPv4 classes, CIDR notation, subnets, private/public ranges, and NAT.
  • VPCs are global; subnets are regional. Auto and Custom networks provide different levels of control.
  • Firewall rules control traffic; routes define packet paths.
  • Peering, Shared VPC, and VPC Flow Logs support network integration, sharing, and monitoring.

Compute Engine & Storage

  • VM configuration includes machine type, image/OS, disks, networking, and metadata.
  • Machine types: General purpose, Compute-optimized, Memory-optimized, Custom.
  • Persistent Disks (network, durable; standard, balanced, SSD; zonal/regional), Local SSD (ephemeral, high-performance).
  • Snapshots enable backup & restore; lifecycle managed via policies.

Containers & GKE

  • Containers package code with dependencies for consistent deployment.
  • Kubernetes/GKE: clusters (control plane + nodes), node pools, deployments, pods, services, ingress.
  • Deploy and scale workloads with declarative manifests; services expose apps via internal/external IPs or load balancers.

App Engine & Cloud Functions

  • App Engine: managed serverless PaaS for apps, supports multiple languages, automatic scaling, versioning, traffic splitting.
  • Cloud Functions: serverless, event-driven code execution (HTTP, Cloud Storage, Pub/Sub triggers).

Cloud Databases

  • Managed SQL: Cloud SQL (MySQL/Postgres/SQL Server), Spanner (global, horizontal scale).
  • Managed NoSQL: Bigtable, Datastore/Firestore, Memorystore.
  • High availability, replication, and backup/restore are core features.

Monitoring & Logging

  • Operations Suite (Stackdriver): Monitoring (metrics, dashboards, alerts), Logging (centralized logs), Error Reporting, Debugger, Trace, Profiler.
  • Integrates with GCP and AWS, supports notifications, custom metrics, agent-based monitoring, and exporting.

Key Terms & Definitions

  • VPC (Virtual Private Cloud) — Software-defined network for GCP resources.
  • IAM (Identity & Access Management) — Framework for managing access to GCP resources.
  • Service Account — Non-human identity for apps/services to access resources.
  • Persistent Disk — Durable block storage for VM instances.
  • GKE (Google Kubernetes Engine) — Managed Kubernetes clusters on GCP.
  • App Engine — Fully managed PaaS for web/mobile apps.
  • Cloud Function — Lightweight, event-driven serverless compute.
  • Cloud Storage — Managed, durable object storage with various classes.
  • Committed Use Discount — Lower pricing in exchange for usage commitment.

Action Items / Next Steps

  • Clone course repo with Git for latest materials.
  • Practice using Cloud Console, SDK, and Cloud Shell for hands-on experience.
  • Use GCP Free Tier to follow along with demos.
  • Complete all lecture and hands-on content before taking practice exams.
  • Review key terms and concepts before the exam.

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