Learning Resources for Google Cloud Platform
A list of resources to help you develop your GCP skills
I occasionally get asked questions regarding learning resources for Google Cloud Platform (GCP), so I created a list of suggestions to help with your cloud learning journey!
Why Google Cloud Platform? 🌤️
Before diving into the resources, you may be wondering why you should learn GCP?
"By 2021, over 75% of midsize and large organizations will have adopted a multi-cloud and/or hybrid IT strategy."
This means most organisations are using two or even three of the cloud platforms for various workloads. Google Cloud recognises customers have different requirements and technology preferences. Thus they are committed to providing products and solutions that are flexible. For example, Google Cloud's Anthos provides a seamless environment for deploying containerised applications on GCP, other public clouds and hybrid cloud environments. BigQuery Omni allows customers to run queries from BigQuery with data stored in other public cloud services, such as AWS.
Still not convinced? Another reason to develop GCP skills is that the top-paying certification (for the second year) is Google's Certified Professional Cloud Architect with an average salary of $175,761 according to Global Knowledge.
Unsure where to start? It's easy to get excited and overwhelmed with Google Cloud's huge ecosystem of products. Focus on navigating the console and picking an area you're most interested in - perhaps it's architecture micro-services, developing serverless applications, or creating machine learning models. Then practice with one or two products that related to your interests. Here's a list of all Google Cloud products categorised by type.
Not sure what to do? Look at the tutorials on the documentation or Codelabs for ideas! (See below for more information)
Resources 📝
I'm recommending a mix of free and paid materials to support your GCP development. This is not an exhaustive list as there are many resources out there - if I have missed anything you think is great, please let me know! 😊
Online Courses 🧑🏫
Coursera
Coursera offers many self-paced video lessons that cover various aspects of Google Cloud from beginner to advanced. Some courses are also available in languages other than English. You will find in-depth explanations for particular GCP areas such as Infrastructure, or Big Data and ML fundamentals. Additionally, some courses focus on a particular product, such as the managed Kubernetes service GKE.
You can go at your own pace, and they're all free (if you don't get the certificate).
A couple of recommended videos:
- Google Cloud Platform Fundamentals: Core Infrastructure
- Google Cloud Platform Big Data and Machine Learning Fundamentals
- Architecting with Google Kubernetes Engine Specialization
Qwiklabs
Qwiklabs provides hands-on labs in the Google Cloud console. Each lab comes with a pre-configured environment to guide you through the steps for a particular task and is usually available for a couple of hours. Great for beginners and all of the instructions/code is provided, so it's a great way to get some familiarity with the console and interact with GCP's products.
Qwiklabs isn't free. However, there are ways of getting free credits.
- Students are eligible for free Qwiklab credits here
- There may be free credits here too
- Follow their social media, sign up for Google Cloud emails as there are events that give free access to training, so don't miss out!
At the time of writing there is a Google Cloud Skills Challenge, where you can complete tasks in a particular area such as Kubernetes, Native App Development or ML and AI. The challenge is for thirty days, and registration ends on Feb 28, 2021. Sign up here.
Participate to show off your completion badges on social media! 😎
Pluralsight
Pluralsight is similar to Coursera, and some courses are available on both platforms. The main difference is that it offers paths for particular skills that take you from beginner to advanced levels. This makes it easy to know what courses to go through, and you can test your skill with quiz questions to monitor your progress.
I really like Pluralsight as it offers many great, easy to follow content on many topics (not just GCP). My favourite courses are by Janani Ravi, who does a great job explaining specific GCP products and provides examples for interacting with them, usually in Python. The only downside is that there is a limited free trial. If the price is an issue, I recommend using Coursera to find some of the same courses on there.
A couple of recommendations:
- Architecting with Google Cloud - Foundations Skills Path
- Data Analytics on Google Cloud - Skills Path
- Building Chatbots with Google Dialogflow
A Cloud Guru
This learning platform focused on the cloud is a great place to learn GCP, AWS or Azure. I found the courses particularly good for preparing for the GCP certifications. They explain concepts clearly and provide labs for many sections to reinforce the content similar to Qwiklabs.
If you're studying for the certification, they have practice questions, although I find they're not as hard as the real ones. There are other sites with questions closer to the real questions such as Whizlabs or examtopics.
The course I used to prepare for the data engineering exam
Do it Yourself 👩💻
The following resources are ways of learning by engaging with the console directly and trying different operations. Probably one of the best ways of learning it!
Free Trial
If you're concerned with costs remember that with every new GCP account you get a free $300 trial to try the services. Additionally, a lot of GCP products come with a Free Tier, meaning that if you use under a certain limit you pay nothing! For example, BigQuery offers free querying up to 1TB a month.
Check out the full list here 🙌
Sandbox Environments
Currently, there are two sandbox environments that don't require a billing account. The BigQuery sandbox and the SRE sandbox. The SRE sandbox provides monitoring of a boutique micro-services demo application.
Documentation Tutorials
A tutorial/How-to guides section provides a step-by-step guide for completing a task for every product. Also, throughout the documentation, there are code snippets and guides to carry out a specific operation. For all Google Cloud code samples visit
A couple of examples:
Codelabs
Codelabs is a selection of tutorials developed by the developer community that supplement the guides found in Google's documentation. They vary in levels of difficulty and they cover every aspect of Google Cloud - application modernisation, data analytics, multi-cloud, IoT, VR, and so on. There is something for everyone!
Youtube
There have been instances where a written explanation of a concept has stumped met; then a video demystifies everything. This happens to me a lot and the main reason why I love watching videos to understand things. Google Cloud has a fantastic Youtube account with great content, mostly by amazing developer advocates. Again, they cover all areas of Google Cloud and come in many forms - short explanations of a concept, a series of tutorials videos for a service, and so on. Also, recordings from Google Next are available. These are useful if you want a deep dive on a product, solution, or how customers are using GCP!
A few great examples:
Thank you for reading 👋
Thanks for reading and I hope this helps with your Google Cloud journey! I would love to hear your comments or other resources you think are great.