AssociateGoogle Cloud

Google Cloud Associate Cloud Engineer — Study Guide & Exam Overview

The GCP Associate Cloud Engineer is Google Cloud's most popular entry-level technical certification. It is the starting credential for cloud engineers, DevOps practitioners, and platform engineers building on Google Cloud infrastructure.

Duration

120 min

Passing Score

70%

Level

Associate

Provider

Google Cloud

What This Certification Covers

  • Deploying and managing workloads on Compute Engine, GKE, App Engine, and Cloud Run
  • Configuring GCP IAM: service accounts, roles, policies, and organization hierarchy
  • Managing Cloud Storage, persistent disks, Cloud SQL, and Firestore for application data
  • Configuring VPC networks, firewall rules, load balancers, and Cloud DNS
  • Monitoring infrastructure with Cloud Monitoring, Cloud Logging, and alerting policies

Exam Domain Breakdown

  • Setting Up Cloud Environment (17.5%)
  • Planning & Configuring Solutions (17.5%)
  • Deploying & Implementing Solutions (25%)
  • Ensuring Successful Operation (20%)
  • Configuring Access & Security (20%)

Exam Format

50–60 multiple choice and multiple select questions, 120 minutes, passing score approximately 70%

Study Tips to Pass GCP ACE

  1. 1Practice the gcloud CLI extensively — many exam scenarios require you to know specific commands
  2. 2Understand GCP's IAM hierarchy: organization → folder → project → resource, and policy inheritance
  3. 3Study when to use each compute option: Compute Engine, GKE, App Engine (Standard vs. Flex), and Cloud Run
  4. 4Master Cloud Storage lifecycle policies, object versioning, and signed URLs
  5. 5Use Qwiklabs (now Google Cloud Skills Boost) labs aligned to the ACE learning path

Ready to test your knowledge? Take a free timed mock exam below.

Official GCP ACE exam page