ACEFree Study Guide

Google Associate Cloud EngineerThe Complete Beginner's Guide

Complete Google ACE study guide — deploying, monitoring, and managing Google Cloud applications and infrastructure.

101 chapters
~42 hours total read
Free — no signup required

How to use this guide

This guide works best as a loop: read a chapter, test yourself with practice questions, look up unfamiliar terms in the glossary, then move to the next chapter.

① Read a chapter② Answer practice questions③ Review missed answers④ Repeat
Study Chapters

101 chapters covering every exam objective. Each chapter includes key concepts, exam tips, common traps, comparison tables, and a 5-question quiz at the end.

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Practice Questions

Free timed and untimed practice with instant feedback and full explanations. Pick 10–120 questions per session. Filter by domain to drill your weak areas.

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Glossary

Every ACEterm defined and searchable. Use it when a chapter mentions a concept you haven't seen before or want a quick refresher on.

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Exam Overview

Exam blueprint, domain weights, passing score, duration, cost, and registration links. Start here if you're new to this certification.

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Setting Up Cloud Environment (17.5%)

13 chapters

Domain overview

Planning and Configuring Solutions (17.5%)

21 chapters

Domain overview

Deploying and Implementing (25%)

23 chapters

Domain overview
8

Deployment Manager and Terraform on GCP

Objective 3.1 · Deploy Implement

25m
9

Cloud Build and CI/CD on GCP

Objective 3.2 · Deploy Implement

25m
10

BigQuery and Pub/Sub

Objective 3.3 · Deploy Implement

25m
29

Cloud Pub/Sub Patterns

Objective 3.3 · Deploy Implement

25m
30

Cloud Dataflow for Stream and Batch

Objective 3.3 · Deploy Implement

25m
31

Cloud Functions (1st and 2nd Gen)

Objective 3.1 · Deploy Implement

25m
32

Cloud Scheduler and Cloud Tasks

Objective 3.1 · Deploy Implement

25m
33

App Engine Standard vs Flexible

Objective 3.1 · Deploy Implement

25m
34

GKE Autopilot vs Standard Mode

Objective 3.1 · Deploy Implement

25m
35

GKE Node Pools and Cluster Autoscaler

Objective 3.1 · Deploy Implement

25m
36

Cloud Build Triggers and CI/CD

Objective 3.2 · Deploy Implement

25m
37

Artifact Registry and Container Management

Objective 3.2 · Deploy Implement

25m
50

GKE Horizontal Pod Autoscaler

Objective 3.1 · Deploy Implement

25m
54

Cloud Run Jobs

Objective 3.1 · Deploy Implement

25m
80

BigQuery Partitioning and Clustering

Objective 3.3 · Deploy Implement

25m
81

BigQuery Views and Materialized Views

Objective 3.3 · Deploy Implement

25m
83

Pub/Sub Push vs Pull Subscriptions

Objective 3.3 · Deploy Implement

25m
84

Cloud Dataproc for Spark and Hadoop

Objective 3.3 · Deploy Implement

25m
85

Cloud Composer for Workflow Orchestration

Objective 3.3 · Deploy Implement

25m
86

Terraform on GCP Best Practices

Objective 3.1 · Deploy Implement

25m
87

Helm Charts on GKE

Objective 3.2 · Deploy Implement

25m
88

Google Cloud Deploy for CD

Objective 3.2 · Deploy Implement

25m
98

Skaffold for Local GKE Development

Objective 3.2 · Deploy Implement

25m

Ensuring Successful Operations (20%)

16 chapters

Domain overview

Configuring Access and Security (20%)

28 chapters

Domain overview
13

GCP IAM and Service Accounts

Objective 5.1 · Security Compliance

25m
14

GCP Security Services

Objective 5.2 · Security Compliance

25m
16

GCP IAM Roles: Primitive, Predefined, Custom

Objective 5.1 · Security Compliance

25m
17

GCP Service Accounts and Workload Identity

Objective 5.1 · Security Compliance

25m
22

VPC Service Controls

Objective 5.2 · Security Compliance

25m
23

Cloud Armor WAF and DDoS Protection

Objective 5.2 · Security Compliance

25m
41

GCP Organization Policies

Objective 5.1 · Security Compliance

25m
48

Confidential Computing on GCP

Objective 5.2 · Security Compliance

25m
51

GKE Workload Identity

Objective 5.1 · Security Compliance

25m
52

GKE Binary Authorization

Objective 5.2 · Security Compliance

25m
53

GKE Private Clusters

Objective 5.2 · Security Compliance

25m
55

Cloud Run VPC Connector

Objective 5.2 · Security Compliance

25m
56

App Engine Security and IAP

Objective 5.2 · Security Compliance

25m
64

Cloud Intrusion Detection System (IDS)

Objective 5.2 · Security Compliance

25m
65

Cloud Data Loss Prevention (DLP) API

Objective 5.2 · Security Compliance

25m
66

Cloud KMS and Customer-Managed Keys

Objective 5.2 · Security Compliance

25m
67

Cloud HSM for Hardware Security

Objective 5.2 · Security Compliance

25m
68

Secret Manager for Credentials

Objective 5.1 · Security Compliance

25m
69

Binary Authorization for Supply Chain Security

Objective 5.2 · Security Compliance

25m
70

Cloud Asset Inventory

Objective 5.1 · Security Compliance

25m
71

Security Command Center (SCC)

Objective 5.2 · Security Compliance

25m
72

Security Command Center Premium Findings

Objective 5.2 · Security Compliance

25m
73

Access Transparency and Access Approval

Objective 5.1 · Security Compliance

25m
76

Cloud Storage Bucket Security

Objective 5.2 · Security Compliance

25m
82

BigQuery Authorized Views for Access Control

Objective 5.1 · Security Compliance

25m
95

Service Account Key Management

Objective 5.1 · Security Compliance

25m
96

Policy Intelligence and IAM Recommender

Objective 5.1 · Security Compliance

25m
101

IAM Audit Logging and Data Access Logs

Objective 5.1 · Security Compliance

25m

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