At the 2019 Google Cloud Next conference, Google had several key announcements. Of the six important news items flagged by TechCrunch, four of those were directly related to advancements within the Google Cloud Platform (GCP) with the other two related to Android and Google’s AI platform. From a cloud innovation’s perspective, Google announced Anthos, which allows organizations to build and manage hybrid applications across various environments, including its own cloud platform as well as Microsoft Azure and Amazon Web Services.
Additionally, Google has embraced third-party open source companies by deeply integrating them into the Google Cloud Console. Also, Google launched Google Cloud Code, a set of extensions and plugins for various Integrated Development Environments (IDEs) which allows developers to effectively package up cloud-native apps and send them to Kubernetes. And, Google aims to make development for retailers easier as it launched a new set of tools specific to retail.
Why are these Google Cloud announcements important? They show Google’s commitment to the cloud with its deepening integrations, increasingly robust feature-sets, and embracing of third-party services. And, for developers, sysadmins, and IT professionals, this means they have an opportunity to become experts of these new technologies and feature-sets.
The Importance of GCP Training and Certification
As businesses, we all want to stay ahead of the competition—to innovate more quickly, to push cloud-first initiatives forward, and to strive for true digital transformation. As employees, we desire to be the best at what we do and to ensure that company business initiatives are met with quality and intelligence.
To achieve any or all of the desires listed above, ensuring that you are trained in the latest and greatest software, architectures, technologies, and tools is paramount. While self-learning or on-the-job (trial-by-fire) training works, it is not always the best way to improve your skill set.
Also, as is evident from the 2019 Google Cloud Next announcements, cloud computing, specifically, is evolving at a blistering pace with new services and integrations revealed rapidly and regularly.
So how do you stay on top of the new GCP innovations? It can be as easy as taking a multi-day, instructor-led course, doing some hands-on studying, and then taking a certification test. And all of this can be accomplished in a matter of weeks, depending on your existing skill set, aptitude for learning, and your job requirements.
ExitCertified offers a variety of Google Cloud Platform-specific courses designed to ensure you get the training you need to prepare for certification as well as excel at your job. You have the choice of either participating in an instructor-led physical classroom or attend virtually.
There are advantages to both types of courses, each is instructor-led, but the primary difference being that with the virtual attendance, you are still taught by an instructor and are part of the class, but you are virtually “present” (from home or office) using ExitCertified’s iMVP environment
What GCP Courses Can You Take?
Cloud computing has created many types of technical positions which didn’t exist a decade ago. As such, we have crafted our GCP courses to focus on delivering core training targeted at positions like Cloud Engineer, Cloud Architect, Cloud Network Engineer, Cloud Security Specialist, Cloud Developer, and Cloud Data Engineer.
Obviously, which certifications you require will define which courses you take. And, while the courses typically can be completed in a week, we usually do not recommend taking the certification exam at the end of the same week. It is often helpful to take a few days to read through the student guide, a takeaway from each class, as well as potentially doing a few days of hands-on labs. Lastly, using some of the newly-learned skills on the job can help cement the knowledge prior to taking the certification.
One last thing to note about taking training from ExitCertified, all GCP training classes and materials are authentic courses from Google. These written or video materials, including the instructor training tools, are updated every few weeks directly by Google to ensure that newly-released features and functions are covered.
Getting certified for various technologies of the Google Cloud Platform ensures your skills are polished and current, enabling you to provide additional value within the workplace while accelerating your cloud career.