This comprehensive guide covers the history of Google Cloud Platform, the products and services it offers, and where it fits in the overall cloud market.
From its humble beginning with Google App Engine back in 2008, Google has grown its Google Cloud Platform into one of the premier cloud computing platforms in the market today. While it is still following its top competitors AWS and Microsoft Azure, Google has continued to make investments in Google Cloud Platform that make the product more attractive to big customers.
To help CXOs, IT leaders, operations administrators, and developers better understand Google's role as a cloud provider, we've put together the most important details and resources in this smart person's guide. This is a "living" article that will be updated and refreshed as new, relevant information becomes public.
Executive summary (TL;DR)
What it is: Google Cloud Platform, as the name implies, is a cloud computing platform that provides infrastructure tools and services for users to build on top of.
Why it matters: Google Cloud Platform is regarded as the third biggest cloud provider in terms of revenue behind Amazon Web Services in first place and Microsoft Azure in second.
Who this affects: Any organization in need of cloud computing should consider Google Cloud Platform for their needs—especially SMBs, which the platform was initially geared toward.
When this is happening: Google announced its first cloud tool, Google App Engine, back in 2008, and as it continued to add more tools and services they collectively became known as the Google Cloud Platform later on.
How to take advantage of Google Cloud Platform: Google has provided documentation for getting started and a frequently asked questions page for developers and IT leaders to investigate the platform.
What is Google Cloud Platform?
In 2008, to capture the growing interest in web applications, Google launched Google App Engine, a platform as a service (PaaS) cloud tool that allowed developers to build and host their apps on Google's infrastructure. App Engine struggled early on, due to the fact that it didn't support certain key developer languages.
Google then released a host of complementary tools, such as its storage layer and its infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) component known as the Google Compute Engine, which supports the use of virtual machines. After adding additional products that handled load balancing, DNS, monitoring, and data analysis, Google Cloud Platform was able to better compete in the cloud market and began to gain market share.
Current Google Cloud Platform products span the following eight categories:
Compute - App Engine, Compute Engine, Container Engine, Cloud Functions, and more
Storage & databases - Cloud Storage, Cloud Bigtable, Cloud SQL, and more
Networking - Cloud CDN, Cloud Load Balancing, Cloud Virtual Network, and more
Big data - BigQuery, Cloud Dataflow, Cloud Dataproc, Cloud Pub/Sub, and more
Machine learning - Cloud Machine Learning Engine, various machine learning APIs
Identity & security - Cloud IAM, Security Key Enforcement, Cloud Security Scanner, and more
Management tools - Stackdriver Overview, Monitoring, Trace, Logging, and more
Developer tools - Cloud SDK, Container Registry, Container Builder, and more
Google Cloud Platform is primarily a public cloud provider. Google does have a network of private cloud providers that can help users build out a hybrid cloud deployment, but its proprietary space is the public cloud. The platform also has a host of other partners that provide additional services.
While AWS and Microsoft consistently push each other to lower prices, Google follows its own pricing pattern and routinely boasts that it offers the lowest cost of the three providers. However, Google really differentiates itself in its services.
Read more:
The Google Cloud Platform: 10 things you need to know (TechRepublic)
Google's master cloud plan: Buy more infrastructure, charge less for it (TechRepublic)
Google on cloud storage pricing: 'Follow Moore's Law' (CNET)
Why machine learning is so critical to the future of Google Cloud (TechRepublic)
Why Google Cloud Platform matters
Whether or not Google Cloud Platform will matter to your organization depends on the type of tools and functionality they value from a cloud provider.
In terms of basic services, Google offers about the same core functionalities of AWS and Azure, but on a smaller scale. Where it really shines, though, is in its big data tools, machine learning initiatives, and container support.
Google's BigQuery and Dataflow bring strong analytics and processing capabilities for companies that work heavily with data, while Google's Kubernetes container technology allows for clear container cluster management and eases container deployment. Google's Cloud Machine Learning Engine and various machine learning APIs make it easier for businesses to leverage artificial intelligence in the cloud.
Google is a company that thrives on the collection and subsequent leveraging of data. Whether that is user data, machine data, or geographic data is irrelevant—if an enterprise wants to experiment with data, the Google Cloud Platform may be a good option as a cloud provider.
Google Cloud Platform also matters because of the massive investment Google is making in its infrastructure. As noted by TechRepublic columnist Matt Asay, in 2014 Google spent more than AWS and Microsoft combined on its cloud infrastructure.
Those investments show most clearly in what Google perceives as its three keys to success in the future: Machine learning, data, and containers. At the 2017 Google Cloud Cloud Next conference in San Francisco, key Google leaders explained how they were working in these areas, as well as compute and security, to make Google Cloud Platform a better option for enterprise customers and a more attractive option.
No comments:
Post a Comment