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Google Cloud – GCS Products and Services

The Big3 Hyper-scale Cloud providers are Google Cloud with GCS and G-Suite, Amazon with their AWS services and Microsoft providing Azure and Office365. There are subtle differences in the platform itself and the range and way in which the services can be consumed. So let’s take a look at Google’s offering.

The Google cloud platform provides a reliable and highly scalable cloud computing services to its users. These services help clients compute and store data, and help developers build, test, and deploy apps. Google cloud covers application, storage, and cloud computing services for backend, mobile, and web solutions using the internet. More than four million apps trust and use the platform.

Google tries to keep the backend as simple as possible and uses a simple file system. This system is the foundation of the Google cloud platform. It handles requests for information via basic commands like write, read, and open. It is a distributed system of computing.

Google Cloud Categories

Products offered by Google Cloud are categorised into four categories: Compute, Storage, Big Data, and Services.

COMPUTE

And splits into two key sub-categories:

Compute Engine

Google’s infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS). This allows Google’s infrastructure to be used to run workloads on a large scale on virtual machines. You can select a virtual computer to suit the business need and be confident to get consistency and performance of Google’s network worldwide. Like AWS and Azure it is consumption based so you have to pay only for what you use since the billing is per minute.

Features

    • High-Performance Virtual Computers
    • Easy and Fast Provisioning
    • Balancing of Loads
    • Security and Compliance

 

App Engine

The App Engine is platform-as-a-service (PaaS), the built services ensure that you and your team are kept at optimum productivity and ready to develop your apps. To do this you will need to download the software development kit (SDK) and you can start development work immediately and for free.

Features

    • Known Development Tools
    • Google Scale Deployment
    • Popular Frameworks and Languages
    • Many Options for Storage
    • Strong In-Built Services
    • Code Focus
    •  

STORAGE

Is split into three sub-categories:

Cloud Storage

The Google Cloud Storage service is  highly available and a highly scalable object storage service. By implementing edge-caching on a global scale, users can quickly access data from their app from anywhere. Google provides you with a simple application programming interface (API), a robust service-level agreement, and runs versioning to let you handle data programmatically.

Features

    • Safe and Secure
    • Variable Access
    • Adjustable and Viable Pricing
    • Storage of Objects with Feature-Rich API
 

Cloud SQL

Cloud SQL is a relational MySQL database which helps manage and store data to ensure performance and availability. Google takes care of database management, patch management, and replication.

Features

    • Completely Managed
    • Easy to Control
    • Simpler Migration Without Lock-In
    • Robustness, Accessibility, Security
    • Pay Per Use and Package Charging
    • Standard Infrastructure

 

Cloud Datastore

It provides a database, which is schema-less, NoSQL, and managed, for storage of non-relational data. In addition to transactions it provides strong support for SQL-like queries too, and the data store scales as required.

Features

    • Scaling Automatically with Users
    • In-built Redundancy
    • Access to Data Anywhere
    • Local Tools for Development
    • ACID Transactions
    • Database Management
    • SQL-Like Querying and Schema-less Access

 

BIG DATA

Forms only one sub-category:

BigQuery

BigQuery analyses big data in the cloud and can process datasets containing several terabytes in a few seconds, and run quick SQL-like queries. It also provides insights in real-time and is scalable and straightforward to use.

Features

    • Suitable Interface
    • Economical Big Data
    • Easy Import of Data
    • Queries Executed in Background

Google also provides a range of developer tools such as Google Plugin for Eclipse, Google Cloud SDK, Android Studio, Cloud Playground, and Push-to-Deploy, along with the cloud platform.

 

SERVICES

Falls into one sub-category:

Cloud Endpoints

Javascript, Android, and iOS clients can access your code through RESTful services from your system with Cloud Endpoints. The generation of client libraries can generate automatically, client key management, OAuth 2.0 support, and protection against denial of service are part of the significant in-built infrastructure.

Features

    • Integration of client-side becomes flexible
    • Client-server maintenance is low
    • App engine infrastructure can be extended
    • Multiple clients handling with a single tools
 

Summary

Google Cloud is certainly well supported and the entire G Suite and Google GCS Cloud platform can work really well in Enterprise business and of course Education. However the need for connectivity is hindering and 3rd party apps need to be used to assist with this issue at present.

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