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Google Professional Cloud Architect Exam Guide 2026 – GCP PCA

Google Professional Cloud Architect (PCA) certification validates your ability to design, develop, and manage secure, scalable, and highly available solutions on Google Cloud. This 2026 guide covers exam format, skills measured, and preparation strategy.


What Is GCP PCA?

The Professional Cloud Architect exam tests your ability to design and plan cloud architecture, manage infrastructure, ensure security and compliance, and optimize technical and business processes on GCP.

  • Exam code: PCA
  • Duration: 2 hours
  • Question types: Multiple-choice, multiple-select
  • Difficulty: Professional
  • Prerequisites: 3+ years IT experience, 1+ year GCP recommended

GCP PCA Skills Measured (Latest Blueprint)

1. Design and Plan a Cloud Solution Architecture (34%)

  • Design scalable and reliable GCP architectures
  • Select appropriate GCP compute, storage, and networking services
  • Design hybrid and multi-cloud solutions

2. Manage and Provision Infrastructure (18%)

  • Use Deployment Manager and Terraform
  • Manage Compute Engine, GKE, and App Engine
  • Implement monitoring and logging

3. Design for Security and Compliance (18%)

  • Design IAM roles and service accounts
  • Secure networking using VPCs and firewalls
  • Manage encryption and data protection

4. Analyze and Optimize Technical and Business Processes (18%)

  • Optimize cost and performance
  • Design for reliability and disaster recovery
  • Support CI/CD and DevOps workflows

5. Manage Implementations (12%)

  • Manage deployments and migrations
  • Ensure operational excellence
  • Support teams and stakeholders

Key GCP PCA Concepts Explained

Compute Engine vs App Engine vs Cloud Run

  • Compute Engine: Full control over virtual machines
  • App Engine: Platform-as-a-Service for web apps
  • Cloud Run: Serverless containers

Cloud Storage vs Persistent Disk vs Filestore

Cloud Storage is object storage, Persistent Disk is block storage for VMs, and Filestore provides managed NFS file storage.


Sample GCP PCA Questions with Explanation

Question 1: Which Google Cloud service is best suited for deploying containerized applications with automatic scaling?

  • A. Compute Engine
  • B. App Engine
  • C. Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE) ✅
  • D. Cloud Functions

Explanation: GKE provides managed Kubernetes with built-in scaling, load balancing, and automated operations for containerized workloads.

Question 2: Which storage option is most appropriate for globally distributed, highly available object storage?

  • A. Persistent Disk
  • B. Filestore
  • C. Cloud Storage ✅
  • D. BigQuery

Explanation: Cloud Storage is designed for durable, scalable, and globally accessible object storage.

Question 3: Which Google Cloud feature helps reduce costs by automatically shutting down underutilized virtual machines?

  • A. Sustained Use Discounts
  • B. Committed Use Discounts
  • C. Autoscaling
  • D. Recommender (Idle VM Recommendations) ✅

Explanation: Recommender analyzes usage patterns and provides recommendations to identify and reduce idle or underutilized resources.

Question 4: Which service should you use to implement least-privilege access control for Google Cloud resources?

  • A. Cloud Monitoring
  • B. Cloud Identity
  • C. Identity and Access Management (IAM) ✅
  • D. Cloud Armor

Explanation: IAM allows you to assign granular roles and permissions following the principle of least privilege.

Question 5: Which database service is best for large-scale analytical queries using SQL?

  • A. Cloud SQL
  • B. Cloud Spanner
  • C. Firestore
  • D. BigQuery ✅

Explanation: BigQuery is a fully managed, serverless data warehouse optimized for high-performance analytical queries.

Download/Practice full GCP Professional Cloud Architect exam questions..


How to Prepare for GCP PCA

  1. Master GCP core services and architecture patterns
  2. Understand IAM, networking, and security deeply
  3. Practice scenario-based architecture questions
  4. Study Google Cloud Architecture Framework
  5. Attempt PCA mock exams

Why Prepare GCP PCA with ClearCatNet

  • ✅ Updated GCP PCA exam content (2026)
  • ✅ Real-world GCP architecture scenarios
  • ✅ Clear explanations with diagrams
  • ✅ Trusted by cloud professionals worldwide

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GCP Professional Cloud Architect (PCA) Exam Dumps FAQs

The Google Professional Cloud Architect (PCA) exam validates your ability to design, develop, and manage secure, scalable, highly available, and dynamic solutions on Google Cloud Platform (GCP) using industry best practices.

Google recommends at least 3 years of industry experience, including 1 year of hands-on experience designing and managing solutions on Google Cloud Platform. Knowledge of cloud architecture, networking, security, and DevOps is essential.

Clearcatnet keeps GCP PCA exam materials fully updated with the latest Google exam blueprint. We provide real exam-style questions, scenario-based answers, detailed explanations, and expert strategies to help you clear the PCA exam on your FIRST ATTEMPT.

The Google Professional Cloud Architect exam consists of 50 multiple-choice and multiple-select questions. The exam duration is 2 hours and includes real-world case-study-based scenarios.

Google does not publish an official passing score for the Professional Cloud Architect exam. Results are reported as Pass or Fail based on scaled scoring and overall performance across exam domains.

The Google Professional Cloud Architect certification is valid for two years. Recertification is required to stay current with the latest Google Cloud technologies and best practices.

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  • Designing and Planning Cloud Architecture
  • Managing and Provisioning GCP Infrastructure
  • Security and Compliance on Google Cloud
  • Analyzing and Optimizing Technical Processes
  • Google Compute, Storage, Networking Services
  • Reliability, Scalability, and Disaster Recovery

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