Unit 2 roadmap — Planning and configuring a cloud solution
Associate Cloud Engineer › Unit 2
Unit 2 roadmap — Planning and configuring a cloud solution
Unit 2 at a glance
- ~17.5%
- 3
- 7
- 82
- 35
- 9
Every objective below is quoted from Google's Associate Cloud Engineer exam guide, retrieved 2026-09-22. Under each topic is that topic's own summary of what the exam actually tests, taken from its lecture.
Topic 1 — Planning and configuring compute resources
ACE-U2.T1 · 2 objectives · lecture deck of 11 slides
- Selecting appropriate compute choices for a given workload (e.g., Compute Engine, Google Kubernetes Engine, Cloud Run, Cloud Functions)
- Using Spot VM instances and custom machine types as appropriate
What this topic actually tests. Stateless or stateful? Cloud Run, or GKE. Autopilot or Standard? Autopilot unless the workload needs node-level control. Can it be interrupted? Then Spot, with a termination action. Does any predefined shape fit? If not, a custom type — in the N or E series.
Topic 2 — Planning and configuring data storage options
ACE-U2.T2 · 2 objectives · lecture deck of 10 slides
- Product choice (e.g., Cloud SQL, BigQuery, Firestore, Spanner, Bigtable)
- Choosing storage options (e.g., zonal Persistent Disk, regional Persistent Disk, Standard, Nearline, Coldline, Archive)
What this topic actually tests. Analysis or application? BigQuery, or one of the four others. Relational at what scale? Spanner globally, Cloud SQL otherwise. Survive a zone? a regional disk replicates to two zones. How often is it read? that picks the class — and a new default class leaves existing objects where they are.
Topic 3 — Planning and configuring network resources
ACE-U2.T3 · 3 objectives · lecture deck of 12 slides
- Load balancing
- Availability of resource locations in a network
- Network Service Tiers
What this topic actually tests. What traffic, from where, to how many regions? — that names the load balancer, and global is external only. What scope is each resource? — a zonal disk needs its VM's zone, a regional IP its VM's region. Which tier, set where? — Premium for performance, Standard for cost; the resource's tier beats the project default, and global external load balancers need Premium.