Google Cloud Platform
Google Cloud Platform (GCP), offered by Google, is a suite of cloud computing services that runs on the same infrastructure that Google uses internally for its end-user products, such as Google Search, Gmail and YouTube.[1] Alongside a set of management tools, it provides a series of modular cloud services including computing, data storage, data analytics and machine learning.[2] Registration requires a credit card or bank account details.[3]
Owner | |
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Industry | Web service, cloud computing |
URL | cloud |
Launched | April 7, 2008 |
Current status | Active |
Written in |
Google Cloud Platform provides infrastructure as a service, platform as a service, and serverless computing environments.
In April 2008, Google announced App Engine, a platform for developing and hosting web applications in Google-managed data centers, which was the first cloud computing service from the company. The service became generally available in November 2011. Since the announcement of the App Engine, Google added multiple cloud services to the platform.
Google Cloud Platform is a part [4] of Google Cloud, which includes the Google Cloud Platform public cloud infrastructure, as well as G Suite, enterprise versions of Android and Chrome OS, and application programming interfaces (APIs) for machine learning and enterprise mapping services.
Products
Google lists over 90 products under the Google Cloud brand. Some of the key services are listed below.
Compute
- App Engine - Platform as a Service to deploy Java, PHP, Node.js, Python, C#, .Net, Ruby and Go applications.
- Compute Engine - Infrastructure as a Service to run Microsoft Windows and Linux virtual machines.
- Kubernetes Engine (GKE) or GKE on-prem offered as part of Anthos platform[5][6] - Containers as a Service based on Kubernetes.
- Cloud Functions - Functions as a Service to run event-driven code written in Node.js, Python, or Go.
- Cloud Run - Compute execution environment based on Knative.[7] Offered as Cloud Run (fully managed)[8] or as Cloud Run for Anthos.[8]
Storage & Databases
- Cloud Storage - Object storage with integrated edge caching to store unstructured data.
- Cloud SQL - Database as a Service based on MySQL and PostgreSQL.
- Cloud Bigtable - Managed NoSQL database service.
- Cloud Spanner - Horizontally scalable, strongly consistent, relational database service.
- Cloud Datastore - NoSQL database for web and mobile applications.
- Persistent Disk - Block storage for Compute Engine virtual machines.
- Cloud MemoryStore - Managed in-memory data store based on Redis.
- Local SSD: High-performance, transient, local block storage.
- Filestore: High-performance file storage for Google Cloud users.
Networking
- VPC - Virtual Private Cloud for managing the software defined network of cloud resources.
- Cloud Load Balancing - Software-defined, managed service for load balancing the traffic.
- Cloud Armor - Web application firewall to protect workloads from DDoS attacks.
- Cloud CDN - Content Delivery Network based on Google's globally distributed edge points of presence.
- Cloud Interconnect - Service to connect a data center with Google Cloud Platform
- Cloud DNS - Managed, authoritative DNS service running on the same infrastructure as Google.
- Network Service Tiers - Option to choose Premium vs Standard network tier for higher-performing network.
Big Data
- BigQuery - Scalable, managed enterprise data warehouse for analytics.
- Cloud Dataflow - Managed service based on Apache Beam for stream and batch data processing.
- Cloud Dataproc - Big data platform for running Apache Hadoop and Apache Spark jobs.
- Cloud Composer - Managed workflow orchestration service built on Apache Airflow.
- Cloud Datalab - Tool for data exploration, analysis, visualization and machine learning. This is a fully managed Jupyter Notebook service.
- Cloud Dataprep - Data service based on Trifacta to visually explore, clean, and prepare data for analysis.
- Cloud Pub/Sub - Scalable event ingestion service based on message queues.
- Cloud Data Studio - Business intelligence tool to visualize data through dashboards and reports.
Cloud AI
- Cloud AutoML - Service to train and deploy custom machine, learning models. As of September 2018, the service is in Beta.
- Cloud TPU - Accelerators used by Google to train machine learning models.
- Cloud Machine Learning Engine - Managed service for training and building machine learning models based on mainstream frameworks.
- Cloud Job Discovery - Service based on Google's search and machine learning capabilities for the recruiting ecosystem.
- Dialogflow Enterprise - Development environment based on Google's machine learning for building conversational interfaces.
- Cloud Natural Language - Text analysis service based on Google Deep Learning models.
- Cloud Speech-to-Text - Speech to text conversion service based on machine learning.
- Cloud Text-to-Speech - Text to speech conversion service based on machine learning.
- Cloud Translation API - Service to dynamically translate between thousands of available language pairs
- Cloud Vision API - Image analysis service based on machine learning
- Cloud Video Intelligence - Video analysis service based on machine learning
Management Tools
- Stackdriver - Monitoring, logging, and diagnostics for applications on Google Cloud Platform and AWS.
- Cloud Deployment Manager - Tool to deploy Google Cloud Platform resources defined in templates created in YAML, Python or Jinja2.
- Cloud Console - Web interface to manage Google Cloud Platform resources.
- Cloud Shell - Browser-based shell command-line access to manage Google Cloud Platform resources.
- Cloud Console Mobile App - Android and iOS application to manage Google Cloud Platform resources.
- Cloud APIs - APIs to programmatically access Google Cloud Platform resources
Identity & Security
- Cloud Identity - Single sign-on (SSO) service based on SAML 2.0 and OpenID.
- Cloud IAM - Identity & Access Management (IAM) service for defining policies based on role-based access control.
- Cloud Identity-Aware Proxy - Service to control access to cloud applications running on Google Cloud Platform without using a VPN.
- Cloud Data Loss Prevention API - Service to automatically discover, classify, and redact sensitive data.
- Security Key Enforcement - Two-step verification service based on a security key.
- Cloud Key Management Service - Cloud-hosted key management service integrated with IAM and audit logging.
- Cloud Resource Manager - Service to manage resources by project, folder, and organization based on the hierarchy.
- Cloud Security Command Center - Security and data risk platform for data and services running in Google Cloud Platform.
- Cloud Security Scanner - Automated vulnerability scanning service for applications deployed in App Engine.
- Access Transparency - Near real-time audit logs providing visibility to Google Cloud Platform administrators.
- VPC Service Controls - Service to manage security perimeters for sensitive data in Google Cloud Platform services.
IoT
- Cloud IoT Core - Secure device connection and management service for Internet of Things.
- Edge TPU - Purpose-built ASIC designed to run inference at the edge. As of September 2018, this product is in private beta.
- Cloud IoT Edge - Brings AI to the edge computing layer.
API Platform
- Maps Platform - APIs for maps, routes, and places based on Google Maps.
- Apigee API Platform - Lifecycle management platform to design, secure, deploy, monitor, and scale APIs.
- API Monetization - Tool for API providers to create revenue models, reports, payment gateways, and developer portal integrations.
- Developer Portal - Self-service platform for developers to publish and manage APIs.
- API Analytics - Service to analyze API-driven programs through monitoring, measuring, and managing APIs.
- Apigee Sense - Enables API security by identifying and alerting administrators to suspicious API behaviors.
- Cloud Endpoints - An NGINX-based proxy to deploy and manage APIs.
- Service Infrastructure - A set of foundational services for building Google Cloud products.
Regions and zones
As of Q1 2020, Google Cloud Platform is available in 22 regions and 61 zones. A region is a specific geographical location where users can deploy cloud resources.
Each region is an independent geographic area that consists of zones.
A zone is a deployment area for Google Cloud Platform resources within a region. Zones should be considered a single failure domain within a region.
Most of the regions have three or more zones. As of Q1 2020, Google Cloud Platform is available in the following regions and zones:
Region Name | Launch Date | Location | Zones |
---|---|---|---|
us-west1 | Q3, 2016 | The Dalles, Oregon, USA |
|
us-west2 | Q3, 2018 | Los Angeles, California, USA |
|
us-west3 | Q1, 2020 | Salt Lake City, Utah, USA |
|
us-west4 | Q2, 2020 | Las Vegas, Nevada, USA |
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us-central1 | Council Bluffs, Iowa, USA |
| |
us-east1 | Q4, 2015 | Moncks Corner, South Carolina, USA |
|
us-east4 | Q2, 2017 | Ashburn, Virginia, USA |
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northamerica-northeast1 | Q1, 2018 | Montréal, Canada |
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southamerica-east1 | Q3, 2017 | São Paulo, Brazil |
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europe-west2 | Q2, 2017 | London, U.K. |
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europe-west1 | St. Ghislain, Belgium |
| |
europe-west4 | Q1, 2018 | Eemshaven, Netherlands |
|
europe-west6 | Q1, 2019 | Zurich, Switzerland |
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europe-west3 | Q3, 2017 | Frankfurt, Germany |
|
europe-north1 | Q2, 2018 | Hamina, Finland |
|
asia-south1 | Q4, 2017 | Mumbai, India |
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asia-southeast1 | Q2, 2017 | Jurong West, Singapore |
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asia-southeast2 | Q2, 2020 | Jakarta, Indonesia |
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asia-east2 | Q3, 2018 | Hong Kong |
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asia-east1 | Changhua County, Taiwan |
| |
asia-northeast1 | Q4, 2016 | Tokyo, Japan |
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asia-northeast2 | Q2, 2019 | Osaka, Japan |
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asia-northeast3 | Q1, 2020 | Seoul, Korea |
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australia-southeast1 | Q3, 2017 | Sydney, Australia |
|
Similarity to services by other cloud service providers
For those familiar with other notable cloud service providers, a comparison of similar services may be helpful in understanding Google Cloud Platform's offerings.
Google Cloud Platform | Amazon Web Services[9] | Microsoft Azure[10] | Oracle Cloud[11] |
---|---|---|---|
Google Compute Engine | Amazon EC2 | Azure Virtual Machines | Oracle Cloud Infra OCI |
Google App Engine | AWS Elastic Beanstalk | Azure App Services | Oracle Application Container |
Google Kubernetes Engine | Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service | Azure Kubernetes Service | Oracle Kubernetes Service |
Google Cloud Bigtable | Amazon DynamoDB | Azure Cosmos DB | Oracle NoSQL Database |
Google BigQuery | Amazon Redshift | Azure Synapse Analytics | Oracle Autonomous Data Warehouse |
Google Cloud Functions | AWS Lambda | Azure Functions | Oracle Cloud Fn |
Google Cloud Datastore | Amazon DynamoDB | Azure Cosmos DB | Oracle NoSQL Database |
Google Cloud Storage | Amazon S3 | Azure Blob Storage | Oracle Cloud Storage OCI |
Certifications
Similar to offerings by Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, and IBM Cloud, a series of Google Cloud Certified programs are available on the Google Cloud Platform. Participants can choose between online learning programs provided by Coursera, Pluralsight, or Qwiklabs as well as live workshops and webinars. Depending on the program, certifications can be earned online or at various testing centers located globally.
- Associate Cloud Engineer
- Professional Data Engineer
- Professional Cloud Architect
- Professional Cloud Developer
- Professional Cloud Network Engineer
- Professional Cloud Security Engineer
- Professional Collaboration Engineer
- Professional Cloud DevOps Engineer
- G Suite
Timeline
- April 2008 - Google App Engine announced in preview[12]
- May 2010 - Google Cloud Storage launched[13]
- May 2010 - Google BigQuery and Prediction API announced in preview[14]
- October 2011 - Google Cloud SQL is announced in preview[14]
- June 2012 - Google Compute Engine is launched in preview[15]
- May 2013 - Google Compute Engine is released to GA[16]
- August 2013 - Cloud Storage begins automatically encrypting each Storage object's data and metadata under the 128-bit Advanced Encryption Standard (AES-128), and each encryption key is itself encrypted with a regularly rotated set of master keys[17]
- February 2014 - Google Cloud SQL becomes GA[18]
- May 2014 - Stackdriver is acquired by Google[19]
- June 2014 - Kubernetes is announced as an open source container manager[20]
- June 2014 - Cloud Dataflow is announced in preview[21]
- October 2014 - Google acquires Firebase[22]
- November 2014 - Alpha release Google Kubernetes Engine (formerly Container Engine) is announced[23]
- January 2015 - Google Cloud Monitoring based on Stackdriver goes into Beta[24]
- March 2015 - Google Cloud Pub/Sub becomes available in Beta[25]
- April 2015 - Google Cloud DNS becomes generally available[26]
- April 2015 - Google Dataflow launched in beta[27]
- July 2015 - Google releases v1 of Kubernetes; Hands it over to The Cloud Native Computing Foundation
- August 2015 - Google Cloud Dataflow, Google Cloud Pub/Sub, Google Kubernetes Engine, and Deployment Manager graduate to GA[28]
- November 2015 - Bebop is acquired, and Diane Greene joins Google[29]
- February 2016 - Google Cloud Functions becomes available in Alpha[30]
- September 2016 - Apigee, a provider of application programming interface (API) management company, is acquired by Google[31]
- September 2016 - Stackdriver becomes generally available[32]
- February 2017 - Cloud Spanner, highly available, globally-distributed database is released into Beta[33]
- March 2017 - Google acquires Kaggle, world's largest community of data scientists and machine learning enthusiasts[34]
- April 2017 - MIT professor Andrew Sutherland breaks the record for the largest ever Compute Engine cluster with 220,000 cores on Preemptible VMs.[35]
- May 2017 - Google Cloud IoT Core is launched in Beta[36]
- November 2017 - Google Kubernetes Engine gets certified by the CNCF[37]
- February 2018 - Google Cloud IoT Core becomes generally available[38]
- February 2018 - Google announces its intent to acquire Xively[39]
- February 2018 - Cloud TPUs, ML accelerators for Tensorflow, become available in Beta[40]
- May 2018 - Gartner names Google as a Leader in the 2018 Gartner Infrastructure as a Service Magic Quadrant[41]
- May 2018 - Google Cloud Memorystore becomes available in Beta[42]
- April 2019 - Google Cloud Run (fully managed) Beta release[43]
- April 2019 - Google Anthos announced[5][44]
- November 2019 - Google Cloud Run (fully managed) General availability release[45]
- March 2020 - Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Google Cloud postponed the online streaming version of its Google Cloud Next mega-conference, two weeks after it cancelled the in-person version.[46]
See also
- Amazon Web Services
- G Suite
- Heroku
- IBM Cloud
- Infrastructure as a Service
- Jelastic
- Microsoft Azure
- OpenStack
- Oracle Cloud
- Platform as a Service
References
- "Why Google Cloud Platform". cloud.google.com. Retrieved 2014-04-05.
- "Google Cloud Products". cloud.google.com. Retrieved 2017-06-02.
- "Google Cloud Free Tier | Google Cloud Platform Free Tier". Google Cloud.
- "Google Doubles Down on Enterprise by Re-Branding Its Cloud". Fortune. Retrieved 2018-09-08.
- "Making hybrid- and multi-cloud computing a reality". Google Cloud Blog.
- "Running Anthos on-premises". Google Cloud.
- "Knative". Knative.
- "Cloud Run". Google Cloud.
- "Map AWS services to Google Cloud Platform products". Retrieved 14 April 2017.
- "Map Microsoft Azure services to Google Cloud Platform products". Retrieved 14 April 2017.
- "Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Service Mapping". Retrieved 13 June 2019.
- "Introducing Google App Engine + our new blog". Google App Engine Blog. 2008-04-07. Retrieved 2018-09-08.
- "Google Storage for Developers: A Preview - The official Google Code blog". Google Storage for Developers. 2010-05-19. Retrieved 2018-09-08.
- "Google Cloud SQL: your database in the cloud - The official Google Code blog". Google Cloud SQL. 2011-10-06. Retrieved 2018-09-08.
- "Google Compute Engine launches, expanding Google's cloud offerings". Google Cloud Platform Blog. Retrieved 2018-09-08.
- "Google Compute Engine is now Generally Available with expanded OS support, transparent maintenance, and lower prices". Google Cloud Platform Blog. Retrieved 2018-09-08.
- "Google Cloud Storage Launches Automatic Server-Side Encryption For All Files". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2018-09-08.
- "Google Cloud SQL now Generally Available with an SLA, 500GB databases, and encryption". Google Cloud Platform Blog. Retrieved 2018-09-08.
- "Google Acquires Cloud Monitoring Service Stackdriver". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2018-09-08.
- "An update on container support on Google Cloud Platform". Google Cloud Platform Blog. Retrieved 2018-09-08.
- "Sneak peek: Google Cloud Dataflow, a Cloud-native data processing service". Google Cloud Platform Blog. Retrieved 2018-09-08.
- "Google Acquires Firebase To Help Developers Build Better Real-Time Apps". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2018-09-08.
- "Unleashing Containers and Kubernetes with Google Container Engine". Google Cloud Platform Blog. Retrieved 2018-09-08.
- "Google's Stackdriver-Based Cloud Monitoring Now in Beta". Data Center Knowledge. 2015-01-14. Retrieved 2018-09-08.
- "Google's Cloud Pub/Sub Real-Time Messaging Service Is Now In Public Beta". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2018-09-08.
- "Cloud DNS, VPN, HTTPS load balancing ... Google looks at rivals, thinks: Yeah, we'll do all that". Retrieved 2018-09-08.
- "Google Opens Cloud Dataflow To All Developers, Launches European Zone For BigQuery". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2018-09-08.
- "Google Container Engine is Generally Available". Google Cloud Platform Blog. Retrieved 2018-09-08.
- "Google paid $380M to buy Bebop, executive Diane Greene donating her $148M share". VentureBeat. 2016-01-04. Retrieved 2018-09-08.
- MSV, Janakiram. "Google Brings Serverless Computing To Its Cloud Platform". Forbes. Retrieved 2018-09-08.
- "Google will acquire Apigee for $625 million". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2018-09-08.
- "Google Stackdriver Hits General Availability". Channel Futures. 2016-10-20. Retrieved 2018-09-08.
- "Introducing Cloud Spanner: a global database service for mission-critical applications". Google Cloud Platform Blog. Retrieved 2018-09-08.
- "Welcome Kaggle to Google Cloud". Google Cloud Platform Blog. Retrieved 2018-09-08.
- "220,000 cores and counting: MIT math professor breaks record for largest ever Compute Engine job". Google Cloud Platform Blog. Retrieved 2018-09-08.
- "Introducing Google Cloud IoT Core: for securely connecting and managing IoT devices at scale". Google Cloud Platform Blog. Retrieved 2018-09-08.
- "Introducing Certified Kubernetes (and Google Kubernetes Engine!)". Google Cloud Platform Blog. Retrieved 2018-09-08.
- "The thing is . . . Cloud IoT Core is now generally available". Google Cloud Platform Blog. Retrieved 2018-09-08.
- "Google to acquire Xively IoT platform from LogMeIn for $50M". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2018-09-08.
- Gagliordi, Natalie. "Google releases Cloud TPU beta, GPU support for Kubernetes | ZDNet". ZDNet. Retrieved 2018-09-08.
- "Magic Quadrant for Cloud Infrastructure as a Service, Worldwide". www.gartner.com. Retrieved 2018-09-08.
- "Introducing Cloud Memorystore: A fully managed in-memory data store service for Redis". Google Cloud Platform Blog. Retrieved 2018-09-08.
- "Announcing Cloud Run, the newest member of our serverless compute stack". Google Cloud Blog.
- MSV, Janakiram. "Everything You Want To Know About Anthos - Google's Hybrid And Multi-Cloud Platform". Forbes.
- "Knative-based Cloud Run services are GA". Google Cloud Blog.
- "Google Cloud is indefinitely postponing the digital version of its cancelled conference as coronavirus continues to spread". Business Insider. Retrieved March 17, 2020.