**Updated Dec 2025: New Practice Test Added for : Altostrat Media Case Study, Cymbal Retail Case Study, KnightMotives Automotive Case Study.  EHR Healthcare Case Study(already covered)

**Reviewed Oct/2025

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Google Cloud Professional Cloud Architect (PCA) – Complete Practice Exam Course

The Google Cloud Professional Cloud Architect (PCA) certification validates your ability to design, develop, and manage secure, scalable, highly available, cost-optimized cloud solutions on Google Cloud.

This Udemy practice exam course is fully and explicitly aligned with:

• Professional Cloud Architect – Standard Certification Exam

• Professional Cloud Architect – Renewal Certification Exam

as defined in the official Google Cloud exam guides .

This course is designed to help you pass the exam confidently by mastering architectural decision-making, not memorizing services.

What This Practice Exam Course Delivers

• Real exam-level scenario-based questions

• Coverage of all domains, subdomains, and weightage

• Questions reflecting Google Cloud’s Well-Architected Framework

• Explicit focus on business + technical trade-offs

• Coverage of modern Google Cloud services including AI, Vertex AI, and Gemini

SECTION 1: STANDARD PCA CERTIFICATION – FULL COVERAGE

Standard PCA Exam Overview

The Standard Professional Cloud Architect exam evaluates your ability to design and operate enterprise-grade cloud solutions across hybrid, multicloud, and legacy environments.

Exam Characteristics

• Multiple enterprise case studies

• Broad architectural scope

• Emphasis on design, migration, security, optimization, and operations

• Strong alignment with the Google Cloud Well-Architected Framework

Official case studies included:

• Altostrat Media

• Cymbal Retail

• EHR Healthcare

• KnightMotives Automotive professional_cloud_architect_ex…

Standard Exam Domain Coverage (100%)

1. Designing and Planning Cloud Solution Architectures (~25%)

Practice questions include:

• Translating business use cases into cloud architectures

• Functional and non-functional requirement analysis

• Business continuity planning

• Cost optimization and ROI measurement

• Data movement and integration patterns

• Workload disposition strategies (build, buy, modernize, retire)

• Security, compliance, and observability by design

• Applying Google Cloud Well-Architected Framework pillars

• High availability, scalability, backup, and recovery

• Network, storage, and compute design

• AI and ML architecture using Vertex AI, Gemini models, Model Garden

• Compute mapping across GKE, Cloud Run, serverless, and VMs

2. Managing and Provisioning Cloud Infrastructure (~17.5%)

Practice scenarios cover:

• Hybrid and multicloud networking

• VPC architecture, load balancing, routing, firewalls

• Storage lifecycle, retention, growth planning

• Compute provisioning and volatility (spot vs standard)

• Container orchestration and serverless design

• Vertex AI pipelines and AI Hypercomputer usage

• Integrating Google AI APIs and Gemini Enterprise capabilities

3. Designing for Security and Compliance (~17.5%)

Questions test:

• IAM and resource hierarchy design

• Encryption, Cloud KMS, and secret management

• Separation of duties and least privilege

• VPC Service Controls and organization policies

• Secure access using IAP and Workload Identity Federation

• Software supply chain security

• Securing AI workloads

• Regulatory compliance, audits, logging, and data sovereignty

4. Analyzing and Optimizing Technical & Business Processes (~15%)

You will practice:

• CI/CD and SDLC architecture

• Disaster recovery and testing strategies

• Cost optimization and resource efficiency

• Stakeholder and change management

• Business continuity planning

• Operational metrics and optimization decisions

5. Managing Implementation (~12.5%)

Coverage includes:

• Advising development and operations teams

• API management using Apigee

• Testing frameworks

• Migration and deployment tooling

• Infrastructure as Code (Terraform)

• Programmatic access using gcloud, gsutil, bq, SDKs

6. Ensuring Solution & Operations Excellence (~12.5%)

Practice focuses on:

• Operational excellence principles

• Monitoring, logging, profiling, alerting

• Reliability engineering and chaos testing

• Production support and quality control

Standard exam information

Length: 2 hours

Registration fee: $200 (plus tax where applicable)

Languages: English, Japanese

Exam format: 50-60 multiple choice and multiple select questions

Content: See the Standard Exam Guide

Case studies: Each exam includes 2 case studies. Case study questions make up 20-30% of the exam and assess your ability to apply your knowledge to a realistic business situation. You can view the case studies on a split screen during the exam. See the standard Exam Guide for the 4 available case studies.

Preparation: Prepare for the exam by following the Professional Cloud Architect Exam Learning Path and this practice test

Exam delivery method:

a. Take the online-proctored exam from a remote location.

b. Take the onsite-proctored exam at a testing center.

Validity period: 2 years

Prerequisites: None

Recommended experience: 3+ years of industry experience including 1+ years designing and managing solutions using Google Cloud

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SECTION 2: PCA RENEWAL CERTIFICATION – FULL COVERAGE

Renewal PCA Exam Overview

The Professional Cloud Architect Renewal exam validates that certified architects remain current with modern Google Cloud capabilities, with deeper focus and higher expectation of hands-on architectural judgment.

Renewal Exam Characteristics

• Single in-depth case study

• Higher emphasis on implementation and operations

• Stronger weighting on modern AI, monitoring, and security

• Less breadth, more depth

Official renewal case studies:

• Cymbal Retail

• Altostrat Media

Renewal Exam Domain Coverage (100%)

1. Designing and Planning Solutions (~30%)

Practice includes:

• Business strategy alignment

• Cost optimization decisions

• Integration patterns and data movement

• Workload modernization strategies

• Success metrics and observability

• High availability, scalability, backup, and recovery

• AI architecture using Gemini and Vertex AI

2. Managing and Provisioning Infrastructure (~40%)

Heavy-weight domain with scenarios on:

• Hybrid and multicloud networking

• VPC, load balancing, and security controls

• Storage lifecycle and protection

• Compute provisioning and orchestration

• Serverless and container platforms

• Monitoring, logging, profiling, and alerting strategies

3. Designing for Security and Compliance (~20%)

You will practice:

• IAM and organization design

• Encryption and key management

• Secure remote access and identity federation

• Supply chain security

• Gemini in Security scenarios

• Regulatory and audit requirements

4. Managing Implementation (~10%)

Scenarios include:

• Application and infrastructure deployment

• API management best practices

• Migration and management tooling

• Infrastructure as Code

• Programmatic access via SDKs and APIs

Renewal exam information

Length: 1 hour

Registration fee: $100 (plus tax where applicable)

Languages: English, Japanese

Exam format: 25 multiple choice and multiple select questions

Content: See the Renewal Exam Guide.

Case Studies: Each exam includes 1 case study aligned to generative AI solutions. Case study questions make up 90-100% of the exam and assess your ability to solve business challenges using generative AI. You can view the case studies on a split screen during the exam. See the Renewal Exam Guide for the 2 available case studies.

Preparation: Prepare for the exam by following the Professional Cloud Architect Renewal Exam Learning Path plus this practice exam.

Exam delivery method:

a. Take the online-proctored exam from a remote location.

b. Take the onsite-proctored exam at a testing center.

Validity period: 2 years

Eligibility: Candidates must have an active certification and be within the renewal eligibility period.

Who This Course Is For

• Google Cloud architects targeting PCA certification

• Professionals preparing for PCA renewal

• Senior engineers transitioning to solution architect roles

• Consultants working on enterprise cloud design

Prerequisites

• Working knowledge of Google Cloud services

• Understanding of networking, IAM, compute, and storage

• Real-world cloud exposure recommended

Why This Course Improves Your Passing Probability

This practice exam course:

• Matches real exam difficulty

• Tests architectural reasoning, not trivia

• Reflects current Google Cloud architecture expectations

• Covers 100% of standard and renewal exam objectives

Who this course is for:

• Anyone Who to develop high rank eminence and stature through certifications