Google Cloud Platform (GCP) - The ultimate overview

To everyone who is not yet familiar with Google Cloud Platform, we, a certified Google Cloud Partner, are going to cover the basics in a series of articles to introduce you to the technology.

What is Google Cloud Platform?

Google Cloud Platform - short GCP - is a set of Google cloud computing services. These cover physical assets as well as virtual means. The services include categories from artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) up to developer tools and data analytics and products like BigQuery, CloudSQL and the Google Kubernetes Engine. Established in April 2008 as "App Engine" it came out of preview in 2011 and adapted its now-renowned name in 2013. Ever since Google added more services to its portfolio with the newest one being Anthos. But who is using GCP and for which purpose?

Who uses Google Cloud Platform?

Firstly, it is to say that the Google Cloud Platform can be accessed and used by anyone according to their needs. That's why it is being used by both, private users and big multinational companies. As the area of application is so wide, there are several different types of users who work with GCP for various purposes; from a programmer who is starting his or her web application to corporations like Twitter, PayPal or eBay.

Google Cloud Platform offers the tools to support its customers on their journey. We at Crystalloids are Google Cloud Partner and use the different services provided by GCP to build crystal-clear data solutions for our customers to help them turn data into knowledge and this knowledge into wisdom.

10 Popular products offered on GCP

Cloud Machine Learning Engine                                                                                                    Being a managed service, the Google Cloud ML Engine allows developers and data scientists to create and run superior machine learning models in production. It has been used by companies to clarify problems ranging from ensuring food safety to identifying clouds in satellite images.

Application Programming Interface (API) Analytics                                                                        API Analytics allows users to get real-time information about the whole digital ecosystem. This includes apps, consumption, API performance and usage metrics like traffic trends and spikes, latency, response times and other custom criteria.

Compute Engine                                                                                                                                  The Google Compute Engine makes it possible to create and perform virtual machines (VM's)  on Google's infrastructure. To be able to launch large compute clusters on Google's framework, the Compute Engine offers scale, performance and value.

BigQuery                                                                                                                                      BigQuery represents a serverless data warehouse offered by Google to process large data sets. It is made for data analysts to get the most and best information out of their available data in a more productive manner.

Cloud SQL                                                                                                                                          Being a fully-managed database service Cloud SQL allows to set up, maintain easily and administer relational databases on Google Cloud Platform.

Cloud SDK                                                                                                                                              The Cloud SDK depicts a set of tools for the Cloud Platform. Accommodating gcloud, gsutil and bq command-line tools it allows to access different products and services from the command-line. These tools are deployable interactively or in automated scripts.

Kubernetes Engine                                                                                                                              The Kubernetes Engine is a production-ready environment for deploying containerized applications. It is mainly used to create or resize Docker container clusters, create container pods or resize application controllers.

Anthos                                                                                                                                                        The biggest announcement on the Google Cloud Next '19 in San Francisco was Anthos. It is an enterprise hybrid and multi-cloud platform that allows to create and manage hybrid applications across environments.

Cloud Storage                                                                                                                                        The Google Cloud Storage allows to store and retrieve any amount of data at any time accessible from any place. It is usable by both, developers and large enterprises.

Stackdriver                                                                                                                                        Google Stackdriver is a monitoring service that provides performance data about applications and virtual machines. It helps businesses ensure optimal performance and availability by carrying out monitoring, logging and diagnostics.

Why would you work with Google Cloud Platform?

Let's say you have a big project ahead, and you want to create a web application. To do so, you need different components and tools. You most probably also want a secure environment that works fast. The price might be also an essential factor to you as there is a limited budget available.

Google Cloud Platform offers all of that and even more. Furthermore, it provides a fast and reliable system that you, as a developer, can trust.                                                                      Now you probably ask yourself why you would choose GCP over the other two big Cloud providers. This question will be tackled and answered in our next blog post.

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ABOUT CRYSTALLOIDS

Crystalloids helps companies improve their customer experiences and build marketing technology. Founded in 2006 in the Netherlands, Crystalloids builds crystal-clear solutions that turn customer data into information and knowledge into wisdom. As a leading Google Cloud Partner, Crystalloids combines experience in software development, data science, and marketing making them one of a kind IT company. Using the Agile approach Crystalloids ensures that use cases show immediate value to their clients and make their job focus more on decision making and less on programming.

For more information, please visit www.crystalloids.com or follow us on LinkedIn.