1 - Study Guide
1 - Study Guide
1 - Study Guide
Leader Study
Guide
2
Introduction
The Google Cloud Digital Leader training and exam are intended for tech-adjacent individuals
who want to demonstrate an overall knowledge of cloud technology concepts and Google Cloud.
The exam validates a candidate’s ability to complete the following course objectives:
● Identify Google Cloud products and solutions that support digital transformation.
● Explain how cloud technology and data can be leveraged to innovate within organizations.
The Cloud Digital Leader exam is job-role independent. The exam assesses the knowledge and skills
of any individuals who want (or are required to) understand the purpose and application of Google
Cloud products.
● Innovating with data and Google Cloud (approximately 30% of the exam)
● Modernizing infrastructure and applications with Google Cloud (approximately 30% of the exam)
● Understanding Google Cloud security and operations (approximately 30% of the exam)
Sign up for the Cloud Digital Leader Learning Path via Google Cloud Skills Boost, Coursera,
or Pluralsight.
Learn more about how and where to take the exam on the Cloud Digital Leader website.
4
Course 1
Digital Transformation with Google Cloud
Module 1: Why cloud technology is revolutionizing business
Course 2
Innovating with Data and Google Cloud
Module 1: The value of data
Course 3
Infrastructure and Application Modernization with
Google Cloud
Module 1: Modernizing IT infrastructure with Google Cloud
Course 4
Understanding Google Cloud Security and Operations
Module 1: Financial governance in the cloud
Cloud locations
● The benefits of storing and managing data Google Cloud’s AI Adoption Framework
in the cloud
Google Cloud Responsible AI
● Appropriate use cases for data solutions
● How APIs modernize legacy systems and CIO’s Guide to Application Migration
create new business value
CIO’s Guide to Application Modernization
● The benefits of Apigee
Google Cloud Networking overview blog
13
Glossary
Course 1
The cloud – A metaphor for the network of data centers that store and compute information
available through the Internet. It includes the complex web of software, computers, networks and
security systems involved.
Cloud technology/computing – The technology and processes needed to store, manage, and
access data that is transferred over the Cloud (as opposed to data that remains on your computer’s
hard drive).
Computing – A machine’s ability to process, store, retrieve, compare and analyze information, and
to automate tasks often done by computer programs (otherwise known as software or applications).
Compute power – The speed at which a computer can process data.
Data – Any information that is useful to an organization. Can be numbers on a spreadsheet, text in
an email, audio or video recordings, images, or even ideas in employees’ heads. Includes internal and
external information.
Private cloud – When an organization has virtualized servers in its own data centers, or those of a
private cloud provider, to create its own private dedicated environment.
17
Public cloud – Where on-demand computing services and infrastructure are managed by a
third-party provider, such as Google Cloud, and shared with multiple organizations or “tenants”
through the public internet.
Hybrid cloud – When applications run in a combination of private and public clouds.
Multicloud – When applications run in a combination of at least two public cloud providers.
Open standard – Software that follows particular specifications that are openly accessible and
usable by anyone.
Open source – Software with source code that is publicly accessible and free for anyone to use,
modify, and share.
Capital expenditures (CapEx) – Upfront business expenses put toward fixed assets. Organizations
buy these items once, and they benefit their business for many years.
Operating expenses (OpEx) – Recurring costs for a more immediate benefit. This represents the
day-to-day expenses to run a business.
Bandwidth – A measure of how much data a network can transfer in a given amount of time.
Network latency – The amount of time it takes for data to travel from one point to another. Often
measured in milliseconds, latency, sometimes called lag, describes delays in communication over a
network.
Regions – Independent geographic areas where Google Cloud resources are deployed, composed
of zones.
Infrastructure as a service (IaaS) – A computing model that offers the on-demand availability of
almost infinitely scalable infrastructure resources, such as compute, networking, storage, and
databases as services over the internet.
Platform as a service (PaaS) – A computing model that offers a cloud-based platform for
developing, running, and managing applications.
Software as a service (SaaS) – A computing model that offers an entire application, managed by a
cloud provider, through a web browser
Shared responsibility model – A model in which the responsibility to secure data is shared
between a business and the cloud provider. The cloud service provider is the data processor, while
the organization is the data controller.
18
Course 2
Data point – A piece of information (e.g. a customer purchase or return).
Structured data – Highly organized, quantitative data (e.g. names or credit card numbers).
Easily stored and managed in databases.
Unstructured data – Data that has no organization and tends to be qualitative (e.g. word
processing documents or images). Can be stored as objects, which consist of the data in its native
format along with metadata such as unique identifiers.
Semi-structured data – Data that falls somewhere in between structured and unstructured data.
It’s organized into a hierarchy, but without full differentiation or any particular ordering. Examples
include emails, HTML, JSON, and XML files.
Object storage – A data storage architecture for large stores of unstructured data, designating
each piece of data as an object (e.g. audio or multimedia files).
Database – An organized collection of data generally stored in tables and accessed electronically
from a computer system. Built and optimized to enable the efficient ingestion of large amounts of
data from many different sources.
Data integrity – Also known as transaction integrity, this refers to the accuracy and consistency of
data stored in a database.
Data warehouse – The central hub for all business data, it assembles data from multiple sources,
including databases. When combined with connector tools, it can transform unstructured data into
semi-structured data that can be used for analysis. Data warehouses are built to rapidly analyze and
report massive and multi-dimensional datasets on an ongoing basis, in real-time.
19
Data lake – A data lake is a repository designed to store, process, and secure large amounts of
structured, semistructured, and unstructured data. It can store data in its native format and process
any variety of it, ignoring size limits and serves many purposes, such as exploratory data analysis.
Artificial intelligence (AI) – A broad field or term that describes any kind of machine capable of a
task that normally requires human intelligence, such as visual perception, speech
recognition,decision-making, or translation between languages.
Machine learning (ML) – A branch within the field of AI. Computers that can “learn” from data and
make predictions or decisions without being explicitly programmed to do so, using algorithms or
models to analyze data. These algorithms use historical data as input to predict new output values.
Course 3
Virtual machines (VM) – A VM is a virtualized instance of a server that re-creates the functionality
of a dedicated physical server. It uses a partitioned space inside a physical server which makes it
easy to optimize and reallocate resources and allow multiple systems to run on the same hardware.
Hypervisor – The software layer that sits on top of physical hardware. Multiple VMs are built on top
of the hypervisor and are enabled by it.
Container – Follows the same principle as a VM, providing an isolated environment to run software
services and optimize resources from one piece of hardware. Containers are more efficient than VMs
because they do not recreate a full representation of the hardware, but only recreate or virtualize the
operating system.
Kubernetes – An open source cluster management system that provides automated container
orchestration.
Serverless computing – A cloud computing execution model in which the cloud provider allocates
machine resources on demand, taking care of the servers on behalf of their customers. Businesses
provide code for the function they want to run and the cloud provider handles all infrastructure
management. Resources such as compute power are automatically provisioned behind the scenes as
needed.
20
Application (or app) – A computer program or software that is designed to carry out a specific
digital task, typically used or run by an end-user. In this digital age, customers expect applications to
be intuitive, well-functioning, and efficient.
Application programming interface (API) – A piece of software that interfaces with or connects
different applications and enables information to flow between systems. In contrast to a user
interface, which connects a computer to a person, an API connects computers or pieces of software
to each other. One purpose of APIs is to hide the internal details of how a system works, exposing
only those parts a developer wants to allow a user or program to interface with. In this way APIs can
help organizations to adapt to modern business needs by allowing access to older legacy systems.
Course 4
Total cost of ownership (TCO) – A comprehensive assessment of all layers within the infrastructure
and other associated costs across the business over time. Includes acquiring hardware and
software, management and support, communications, and user expenses, and the cost of service
downtime, training and other productivity losses.
Privacy – The data an organization or an individual has access to, and who they can share that data
with.
Security – The policies, procedures and controls put in place to keep data and infrastructure safe.
Availability – The duration for which the cloud service provider guarantees that client’s data and
services are up and running or accessible.
Defense-in-depth – The cloud service provider manages the security of its infrastructure and its
data centers, and customers gain the benefits of their infrastructure’s multiple built in security
layers.
21
Resource hierarchy – How an IT team can organize a business’s Google Cloud environment and
how that service structure maps to the organization’s actual structure. It determines what resources
users can access.
DevOps – Developer operations. A philosophy that seeks to create a more collaborative and
accountable culture within developer and operations teams. Five objectives of DevOps include
reducing silos, accepting failure as normal, implementing gradual change, leveraging tooling and
automation and measuring everything.
SRE – Site reliability engineering. A discipline that applies aspects of software engineering to
operations. The goals of SRE are to create ultra-scalable and highly reliable software systems. Best
practices central to SRE align with DevOps objectives.
Monitoring – Gathering predefined sets of metrics or logs. Monitoring is the foundation for site
reliability engineering because it provides visibility into the performance, uptime, and overall health
of cloud powered applications.
Log file – A text file where applications (including the operating system) write events. Log files
make it easier for developers, DevOps and system administrators to get insights and identify the
root cause of issues within applications and the infrastructure.
Logging – A process that allows IT teams to analyze selected logs and accelerate
application troubleshooting.
22
App Engine – A platform for building scalable web applications and mobile back-ends.
Cloud Console – A web-based interface for managing and monitoring cloud apps.
Cloud Debugger – A real-time application state inspection and in-production debugging tool.
Cloud Functions – An event-driven compute platform for cloud services and apps.
Cloud Identity – A unified platform for IT administrators to manage user devices and apps.
Cloud Monitoring – A tool monitoring infrastructure and application health with rich metrics.
Cloud Profiler – Continuous CPU and heap profiling to improve performance and reduce costs.
Cloud Spanner – A fully managed Google Cloud database service designed for global scale.
23
Cloud SQL – Google Cloud’s database service (relational database management service).
Cloud Storage – Google Cloud’s object storage service for structured, semi-structured and
structured data. One of several products used in data lake solutions.
Cost Management – Tools for monitoring, controlling, and optimizing business costs.
Dataflow – A fully managed streaming analytics service that creates a pipeline to process both
streaming data and batch data.
Firebase – An app development software to build, improve, and grow mobile and web apps.
Pub/Sub – A distributed messaging service that can receive messages from various device streams
such as gaming events, IoT devices, and application streams. The name is short for
Publisher/Subscriber.
TensorFlow – An end-to-end open source platform for machine learning, with a comprehensive,
flexible ecosystem of tools, libraries and community resources, originally created by Google.
Vertex AI – A unified platform for training, hosting and managing ML models. Features include
AutoML and custom training.
VMware Engine – An engine for migrating and running VMware workloads natively on Google Cloud.
Note: This service is not intended for secure transactions such as banking, social media, email, or purchasing. Use at your own risk. We assume no liability whatsoever for broken pages.
Alternative Proxies: