What this exam actually proves

The Associate Cloud Engineer (ACE) exam is not a theory test about cloud concepts. It checks whether you can deploy, configure, secure, monitor, and operate workloads on Google Cloud using the console and the command line. If you already work with infrastructure, this feels like an operations-heavy associate exam. If you come from development, the hard part is usually networking, IAM, and troubleshooting.

What Google expects you to do:

Set up projects, billing, APIs, and access.
Deploy compute to Compute Engine, Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE), and serverless platforms.
Work with Cloud Storage, managed databases, and data movement basics.
Build and troubleshoot VPC networks, firewall rules, load balancers, and connectivity.
Use gcloud, Cloud Shell, and the Console effectively.
Monitor, log, and maintain environments with basic reliability and security controls.

This exam is best suited for you if you:

Administer cloud resources already, even if not on GCP.
Need a first Google Cloud certification that maps to day-to-day operations.
Want a cert that is broad enough to be useful but still practical.

Format changes over time, so verify current details on Google's certification page before booking. Expect multiple-choice and multiple-select questions built around operational scenarios. Many questions are short, but the good ones force you to pick the most Google-native, lowest-friction answer. That matters. ACE rewards knowing the managed service Google wants you to use, not the one you could force into place.

One more reality check: this exam is broad. Not deep like Professional-level exams, but broad enough that weak spots in IAM, VPC, or gcloud syntax will cost you.

Start with the control plane: projects, IAM, org structure, and billing

A lot of candidates rush into Compute Engine and GKE. That is a mistake. Google Cloud starts with resource hierarchy and access control. If you do not understand how organization -> folders -> projects -> resources works, other questions become harder than they need to be.

Focus here first:

Resource hierarchy
- Organization node
- Folders
- Projects
- Inheritance of policies
IAM
- Primitive roles vs predefined roles vs custom roles
- Members, principals, service accounts
- Policy inheritance
- Principle of least privilege
Service accounts
- Attaching them to VMs and workloads
- Distinguishing user identity from workload identity
- Service account keys, and why avoiding long-lived keys is preferred
Billing and quotas
- Billing accounts
- Project linkage
- Budgets and alerts
- Quotas vs limits
APIs and services
- Enabling APIs for products before use
- Common API-related deployment failures

Know the tools and commands, not just the ideas:

gcloud config set project PROJECT_ID
gcloud projects list
gcloud services enable compute.googleapis.com
gcloud iam service-accounts list
gcloud projects add-iam-policy-binding PROJECT_ID \
  --member="user:user@example.com" \
  --role="roles/viewer"

Things Google likes to test in this area:

You need to grant access to a team for one project, not the whole organization. The right scope is usually project-level IAM, not org-level.
A VM must access Cloud Storage securely. The right answer is usually attach a service account with the required role, not embed credentials.
A deployment fails because an API is not enabled. This is common in ACE-style questions.
A team needs cost visibility without full admin control. Think billing roles, budgets, and project separation.

What is straightforward:

Basic IAM role assignment.
Project setup and API enablement.

What trips people up:

Mixing up IAM roles with OAuth scopes on older VM patterns.
Forgetting that policies inherit downward.
Overusing owner/editor/viewer when a narrower predefined role exists.

If you are weak on identity, spend extra time on IAM roles for common services: Compute Engine Admin, Storage Admin/Object Viewer, Kubernetes Engine Admin, Service Account User, Logging Viewer, Monitoring Viewer. ACE does not require memorizing every role, but you must recognize the right level of privilege.

Deploying workloads: know when Google wants VMs, containers, or serverless

This is the heart of the exam. You need to recognize the right compute option and know the operational basics for each one.

Compute Engine: the default IaaS path

You should be comfortable creating and managing VMs, instance templates, managed instance groups, and attached disks.

Study these topics closely:

VM creation options
- Machine families and regions/zones
- Public vs private IP
- Startup scripts
- Metadata
Storage attached to VMs
- Persistent Disk types
- Local SSD basics
- Snapshots and images
Availability patterns
- Managed instance groups (MIGs)
- Autoscaling
- Autohealing
- Regional vs zonal design awareness
Access and operations
- SSH options
- OS Login basics
- Serial console use in troubleshooting

Commands worth practicing:

gcloud compute instances create web-1 \
  --zone=us-central1-a \
  --machine-type=e2-medium \
  --image-family=debian-12 \
  --image-project=debian-cloud

gcloud compute ssh web-1 --zone=us-central1-a

gcloud compute snapshots create disk-snap-1 --source-disk=my-disk --source-disk-zone=us-central1-a

Google Kubernetes Engine: enough to operate, not enough to be a Kubernetes specialist

ACE does not expect deep Kubernetes internals, but you do need working knowledge of GKE clusters, node pools, and basic application deployment.

Know:

Cluster creation basics
Autopilot vs Standard high-level differences
Getting credentials with gcloud container clusters get-credentials
Deployments, Services, scaling basics
Upgrades and node pools at a practical level
When GKE is more appropriate than a single VM

Practice flow:

gcloud container clusters create-auto ace-cluster --region=us-central1
gcloud container clusters get-credentials ace-cluster --region=us-central1
kubectl create deployment hello-app --image=gcr.io/google-samples/hello-app:1.0
kubectl expose deployment hello-app --type=LoadBalancer --port=80 --target-port=8080

Serverless: Cloud Run and App Engine matter more than many candidates expect

Google likes managed services. If the question asks for minimal ops, automatic scaling, or deploying containerized web apps quickly, Cloud Run is often the right answer.

Study:

Cloud Run for stateless HTTP container workloads
App Engine basics, especially standard deployment concepts
Triggering and permissions at a basic level
Tradeoffs vs Compute Engine and GKE

Decision patterns you should internalize:

Need full OS control or custom agent installation? Compute Engine.
Need container orchestration across multiple services? GKE.
Need quick deployment of a stateless container with minimal infrastructure management? Cloud Run.
Need a simple platform deployment model for supported runtimes? App Engine.

Storage and databases tied to deployment choices

ACE expects practical knowledge of service selection:

Cloud Storage
- Buckets, storage classes, lifecycle rules
- Object versioning basics
- gsutil / gcloud storage operations
Cloud SQL
- Managed relational database basics
- Connectivity and backups at a high level
Firestore and Bigtable may appear conceptually, but ACE is less about deep database design and more about selecting the right managed option.

Expect scenario questions like:

Static website assets or backups? Cloud Storage.
Managed MySQL/PostgreSQL/SQL Server? Cloud SQL.
Need shared file storage for instances? You should at least recognize Filestore.

This whole domain is about choosing the right service, then knowing the first operational steps to deploy it.

Networking is where many ACE attempts go sideways

You do not need to be a network engineer, but you do need to understand how Google Cloud networking behaves. This is one of the highest-value study areas because it appears across deployment, security, and troubleshooting questions.

VPC fundamentals you must know cold

VPC networks are global.
Subnets are regional.
You can have auto mode or custom mode VPCs.
Firewall rules are applied at the VPC level and target instances by tags or service accounts.
Routes determine traffic flow, including default internet routes and custom routes.

Study these pieces together, not separately:

Creating VPCs and subnets
Expanding subnet ranges
Private vs public IP communication
Ingress and egress firewall rules
Network tags
Shared VPC basics
Private Google Access basics
Cloud NAT basics

Typical ACE logic traps:

A VM has no external IP but needs outbound internet access. Think Cloud NAT.
Instances cannot receive web traffic. Check firewall rules, target tags, and whether a load balancer is in place.
Resources in different regions need private communication. Verify subnets, firewall rules, and routing assumptions.

Load balancing and traffic distribution

You should recognize Google's load-balancing options at a practical level:

Global HTTP(S) load balancing for web apps
TCP/UDP load balancing basics
Health checks
Backends and instance groups

You are unlikely to get buried in every SKU, but you should know when a question points to a managed instance group behind a load balancer with health checks.

Hybrid and connectivity awareness

ACE may touch these lightly:

Cloud VPN basics
Cloud Interconnect at a conceptual level
DNS basics with Cloud DNS

Do not overinvest here unless the rest of your networking is already solid. For ACE, firewall rules, VPC/subnets, external vs internal connectivity, and NAT matter more.

Useful commands:

gcloud compute networks create custom-vpc --subnet-mode=custom

gcloud compute networks subnets create app-subnet \
  --network=custom-vpc \
  --region=us-central1 \
  --range=10.10.0.0/24

gcloud compute firewall-rules create allow-http \
  --network=custom-vpc \
  --allow=tcp:80 \
  --target-tags=web

If your background is not infrastructure-heavy, spend extra lab time here. Reading alone will not fix networking confusion.

Operations, monitoring, security, and keeping things running

This domain ties together observability, maintenance, and day-two operations. It is less glamorous than deployment, but it is what separates people who can launch resources from people who can run them.

Cloud Operations suite

Know the old names because you will still see them in blogs and older materials, but study the current services:

Cloud Logging
Cloud Monitoring
Alerting policies
Dashboards
Uptime checks

Be able to answer questions like:

How do you investigate why a VM or service is failing? Start with logs, metrics, and health checks.
How do you notify a team when CPU or error rate crosses a threshold? Alerting policy.
How do you verify public endpoint availability? Uptime checks.

Backups, snapshots, and maintenance

Study practical operations:

Snapshotting Persistent Disks
Creating machine images or custom images at a high level
Managed database backups for Cloud SQL
Rolling updates with managed instance groups
Autoscaling behavior and health checks

Security controls that show up often

ACE is not a security specialist exam, but security is baked into many scenarios.

Know these well:

Least-privilege IAM
Service accounts for workloads
Firewall restrictions
Public vs private endpoints
Basic encryption assumptions in Google Cloud
Secret handling awareness, including Secret Manager at a basic level

CLI and automation mindset

Google expects you to be comfortable with the command line. You do not need to memorize every flag, but you should be able to read and reason about commands. Practice with:

gcloud
gsutil and the newer gcloud storage commands
kubectl
Cloud Shell

Also know the purpose of:

Deployment Manager historically, but note that study materials may mention it even if Google product strategy evolves.
Basic infrastructure-as-code awareness is useful, but ACE is more likely to ask operational than authoring-heavy IaC questions.

When a question asks for the fastest Google-native way to inspect, fix, or validate something, the answer is often one of:

Use Cloud Shell
Use gcloud
Check Cloud Logging / Monitoring
Adjust IAM or firewall rules
Use a managed service instead of self-managing on VMs

A study plan that matches your background

For this exam, your timeline should depend on how much hands-on cloud administration you already have. Do not use a one-size-fits-all plan.

If you already administer cloud infrastructure: 3 to 4 weeks

This fits people coming from AWS/Azure ops, Linux admins, or platform engineers.

Week 1

Learn Google Cloud hierarchy, IAM, billing, projects, APIs
Practice gcloud, Cloud Shell, service accounts
Create projects, assign roles, enable services

Week 2

Compute Engine, disks, snapshots, instance groups, load balancing basics
Cloud Storage, Cloud SQL basics
Deploy VMs and test startup scripts

Week 3

VPCs, subnets, firewall rules, routes, Cloud NAT, Private Google Access
GKE basics and Cloud Run basics
Logging, Monitoring, alerts, troubleshooting scenarios

Week 4

Practice questions and weak-area repair
Rebuild key workflows from scratch without notes
Focus on service selection questions and networking troubleshooting

If you have some GCP exposure but not daily admin experience: 5 to 7 weeks

This is the most common path.

Spend the first 2 weeks on IAM, projects, Compute Engine, and Cloud Storage.
Spend the next 2 weeks on networking and GKE/Cloud Run.
Spend 1 week on operations, monitoring, backups, and security.
Use the final 1 to 2 weeks for practice questions and repeated labs.

Target cadence:

5 days/week
60 to 90 minutes on weekdays
2 to 3 hours on weekends

If you are new to cloud administration: 8 to 10 weeks

You will need repetition more than speed.

Suggested order:

Projects, IAM, billing, APIs
Compute Engine and Cloud Storage
VPC, subnets, firewall rules, load balancers
Cloud SQL, serverless options, GKE basics
Monitoring, logging, troubleshooting
Full review with practice exams and labs

For beginners, the key is to build every major service once. Reading about VPCs is not enough. Create one. Break connectivity. Fix it.

The study order I recommend regardless of experience

IAM + projects + billing
Compute Engine + Cloud Storage
VPC + firewall rules + NAT + load balancing
GKE + Cloud Run + App Engine basics
Monitoring + Logging + backups + troubleshooting
Practice questions mapped to weak domains

Do not start with GKE because it feels modern. Start with the foundations Google wraps everything around.

Resources worth your time

Use a short list of strong resources and go deep. Too many candidates waste time hoarding courses.

Official Google resources

Google Cloud Associate Cloud Engineer exam guide
- Start here for the current objective list and exam expectations.
Google Cloud Skills Boost
- Hands-on labs for Compute Engine, IAM, networking, GKE, Cloud Run, and Cloud Storage.
- Search for role-based learning paths tied to ACE.
Google Cloud documentation
- Especially for:
  - IAM overview
  - VPC overview
  - Compute Engine VM instances
  - Cloud Storage quickstarts
  - GKE quickstarts
  - Cloud Run deploy guides
  - Cloud Monitoring and Logging docs

Courses that are commonly useful

Google Cloud training on Coursera
- The Associate Cloud Engineer learning path is a solid official starting point.
A Cloud Guru / Pluralsight ACE courses
- Useful if you want structured videos, but verify recency because GCP evolves fast.
Dan Sullivan's Google Cloud Associate Cloud Engineer Study Guide
- One of the better books for organized review and practice-oriented coverage.

Hands-on environments

Google Cloud free tier and free credits if available in your region/account status
Cloud Shell for quick CLI practice
Skills Boost labs for guided repetition

Practice questions

You mentioned 306 practice questions on Truekia. That is enough volume to be useful if you use them correctly.

Best way to use them:

Do not start with full timed sets on day one.
First, study a domain, then do only questions from that domain.
Track every miss by category:
- IAM
- Compute
- Networking
- Storage/data
- GKE/serverless
- Monitoring/troubleshooting
Rewrite the lesson from each wrong answer in one sentence.
In the final 10 days, switch to mixed timed sets.

A good benchmark before booking:

Consistent 80%+ on mixed practice sets
No major blind spot in networking or IAM
You can explain why the wrong options are wrong, not just why the right one is right

Docs I would personally revisit in the final week

IAM roles and service accounts overview
VPC and firewall rules docs
Compute Engine instance lifecycle and disks
GKE quickstart and cluster auth flow
Cloud Run deployment basics
Cloud Logging query basics and Monitoring alerting overview

How to answer Google-style questions on exam day

Google questions often reward choosing the answer that is managed, secure, minimal, and operationally sane.

Use this decision filter:

What is the actual requirement? Availability, least privilege, minimal ops, cost control, speed, or hybrid connectivity?
What Google-native service best fits that requirement?
Which option avoids unnecessary administration?
Which option follows least privilege and standard GCP patterns?

Practical exam-day advice:

Read the last sentence first. It usually tells you what to optimize for.
Watch for phrases like:
- least privilege
- minimize operational overhead
- high availability
- cost-effective
- quickest way
Eliminate answers that require self-managing infrastructure when a managed Google service clearly fits.
Be careful with near-correct IAM answers. Scope matters.
On networking questions, check these in your head before choosing:
- subnet/region
- firewall rule
- route/NAT
- external vs internal IP
If two answers look plausible, prefer the one that is more idiomatic on Google Cloud:
- service account instead of embedded credentials
- Cloud Run/App Engine instead of a VM for simple stateless apps
- managed instance group plus health checks instead of hand-built VM fleets

Time management:

Do one pass and answer what you know immediately.
Mark questions where two options are close.
Do not burn five minutes trying to remember a minor CLI flag. ACE tests operations, not perfect syntax memory.

Last 48 hours:

Do not cram obscure products.
Revisit IAM, VPCs, firewall rules, Compute Engine, Cloud Storage, GKE basics, Cloud Run basics, and Monitoring/Logging.
Run a few commands in Cloud Shell so the tooling feels familiar.

If you walk in strong on IAM, VPC/firewalls, Compute Engine, Cloud Storage, and the service-selection logic between VM, GKE, and Cloud Run, you are covering the parts that most often decide the result.