Google Cloud Platform: Key Advantages and Why You Should Adopt It
Google Cloud Platform or GCP refers to a group of public cloud services that is provided by Google to client enterprises. These services cover computing, application development, and storage needs of organizations and run on hardware offered by Google. IT professionals and software developers at Google cloud company can access these solutions via dedicated network connections or across the Internet.
Services Offered by Google Cloud Platform
Storage and Database Services:
Cloud Storage: Refers to combined object storage which gives a range of storage options like high QPS content and geo-redundant low latency for users across geographic regions.
Cloud SQL is a completely managed database service to line relational MySQL databases on the Google platform.
Big Table denotes a high-end NoSQL Big Data database providing which can support large workloads with steady low latency.
Cloud Datastore which denotes a NoSQL schema-less database to keep non-relational data.
Computing Services:
Compute Engines: This is an IaaS solution which provides virtual machines which are run on Google infrastructure.
Container Engine: This denotes a cluster management system for Docker containers and is built upon the Kubernetes project.
App Engine: This is a PaaS providing which is required for creating web apps or mobile back-ends over container instances.
Container Registry is a private Docker repository which has been hosted on Google.
Big Data Services:
Big Query implies a server-less and fully managed data warehouse which can hoard queries for Big Data using SQL.
Dataproc denotes a managed Apache Spark, Apache Pig and Apache Hadoop Apache Hive services for processing large datasets.
Cloud Dataflow implies a fully-managed data processing service for real-time data and processing streaming Big Data.
Machine Learning Services:
Cloud Machine Learning refers to a managed service to build machine learning models through the Tensor Flow framework.
Cloud Speech API which converts speech into text.
Cloud Vision API which is for Image Recognition and Classification is an API that helps in understanding content of any image; it can detect objects or faces within images and can locate and read printed words which are contained inside the images.
Networking Services:
Google Cloud Virtual Network refers to a collection of Google-run networking capabilities such as granular IP address selection, firewalls, routers, VPN etc.
Cloud Load Balancing refers to a service which can balance loads and auto-scales the computing resources within single or multiple zones.
Cloud CDN uses the globally distributed PoPs or Points of Presence to cache the HTTPS content nearer to the end-users.
Identity and Security Services:
Google Cloud IAM or Identity and Access Management will allow administrators to decide who gets to take action on resources and also covers in-built auditing.
Cloud Security Scanner refers to a web security scanning solution for detecting common loopholes in the App Engine applications.
Cloud Resource Manager refers to a service to programmatically manage resource containers.
Advantages of Google Cloud Platform
One of the biggest advantages you can get from the Google Cloud Platform is better prices compared to other public cloud services providers. Users will only need to pay for the computing time they are using and they are entitled to get attractive discounts for long-running workloads. This is where Google Cloud scores ahead of Microsoft Azure which only offers 5% discount for a whole year’s prepayment or AWS which makes clients pay upfront for Reserved Instances.
Another key benefit of choosing Google Cloud is the presence of a huge private global network using fibre optic cables, running even under oceans. Excellent networking speed automatically offers great cost benefits. Data can be processed faster.
Google Cloud also makes way for live migrations of the virtual machines. Providers like AWS and Azure cannot offer this unique function. When you host a WordPress site you can be sure your VMs are always up and running. There will not be any change in performance even when the VMs are being shifted. So, Google Cloud engineers can resolve patching or updating issues better.
Google Cloud can also guarantee better performances. There are prompt response times with no spikes and minimal errors. Besides Google Cloud also offers superior security measures and you get to benefit from a model which has taken shape over the last 15 years. There are more than 500 security professionals employed by Google to make sure data is well encrypted in transit. Since Google also maintains solid ties with many reputed ISPs, data security can never be questioned on this platform.
To sum up, Google Cloud has always been committed to expanding its infrastructure to many new locations. So, using Google Cloud gives you many advantages. It is cheaper no doubt, but it also boasts of having one of the biggest networks throughout the world. This can guarantee low latency and better computing prices because data is processed faster. The live migration of VMs is an advantage that is indeed unique and distinguishes the Google Cloud from its competitors.
