I am very proud to share that together with my colleague Agnieszka Koziorowska we have released the book Google Cloud Associate Cloud Engineer Certification and Implementation Guide.

Official release was on September 27th 2023 and it took some time not only to write the book but write about writing the book ;)

Details about the book

Product details

• Publisher: Packt Publishing (September 29, 2023)
• Language: English
• Paperback: 606 pages
• ISBN-10: 1803232714
• ISBN-13: 978-1803232713
• Item Weight: 2.26 pounds
• Dimensions: 7.5 x 1.37 x 9.25 inches

Table of Contents

• Associate Cloud Engineer Certification Essentials
• Google Cloud Platform Fundamentals
• Planning and Managing GCP Resources
• Implementing Compute Solutions - Google Compute Engine
• Implementing Compute Solutions - Google Kubernetes Engine - Part 1
• Implementing Compute Solutions - Google Kubernetes Engine - Part 2
• Implementing Compute Solutions - Cloud Run, Cloud Functions, and Infrastructure as Code
• Configuring and implementing - Data Storage Solutions
• Configuring and Implementing Networking Components
• Data Processing Services in Google Cloud
• Monitoring, Logging, and Estimating Costs in GCP
• Implementing Identity and Security in Google Cloud
• Mock test 1
• Mock test 2

Book writing with Pack

First of all I really have to thank Packt Publishing about the opportunity of writing the book. Second of all I really would like to thank excellent team of people who helped us to write the book. They kept me and Agnieszka motivating and really supported us with answers to all our questions.

Thank you so much:

• Linda Pearlson
• Rohan Dobhal
• Preet Ahuja
• Sujata Tripathi
• Prajakta Naik
• Shagun Saini
• Meeta Rajani
• Yogesh Deokar
• and other I most likely forgot

Others who contributed to the book

• Daniel Sharobeem
• Kasia Siedlarek
• Sahil Suri
• Caroline Matta
• Mona Mona
• Marcelo Marques

Book writing experience

Everything started 30.09.2021 when Yogesh contacted me on LinkedIn and he asked me if I would be willing to write Associate Cloud Engineer book.

I immediately responded with the only answer YES!. So a few numbers :D

From and including: Thursday, 30 September 2021 To, but not including Wednesday, 27 September 2023 Result: 727 days

The book writing process took almost two Years! I know it is a long period of time :)

As every Googler I love data 62,812,800 seconds 1,046,880 minutes 17,448 hours 727 days 103 weeks and 6 days 199.18% of a common year (365 days)

Challanges faced during writing the book

I cannot speak for Agnieszka but I’ll list some things which challenged me the most:

• It took very long time to translate ACE certification requirements into book itself.
• It was challenging to get into the rhythm of writing. As I am fully employed, have family and kids I was able to write only in the evenings. Sometimes you are so tired and need rest and you don’t have physical strength to sit in front of the computer.
• Some chapters were very long. It took me month to write chapter about GCE itself. Same was with GKE which was splitted into two chapters. I nearly gave up during writing those chapters.
• Book writing is not as easy as blog writing. On my blog I put articles once per week or month. During book writing I had to write every day. That makes a whole lot difference.
• Since I am working at Google I never had to use Microsoft Office anymore. Now, I had to use Word to write a book. This was really painful experience and I never ever want to use Word anymore. Long live Google Docs and online editors.

Associate Cloud Engineer Useful Links

Here is selection of links which will help you to understand topics.

• ACE book on Packt Website
• ACE book on Amazon
• ACE answers to mock questions on GitHub
• Associate Cloud Engineer Google Page
• Associate Cloud Engineer Certification exam guide

Summary

In this long post I can tell that it was worth it to spend almost two Years on this project. I am super proud it worked, but still can’t believe it. Will I write the next one? Who knows :)