A COMPLETE GUIDE

TO GOOGLE CLOUD

PLATFORM

And why Google is winning the Cloud War

AUTHORS

Murali Dodda is a Cloud Technology Specialist with over 15 years of experience in the technology space. He is a product of the prestigious IIT Madras. Murali provides 'technology and business leadership' to startups and has overseen successful exits for several of them. He is currently leading a team of technologists at Bitmin, a hot new startup delivering cloud services. Murali uses his weekends to catch up on the latest developments in technology innovation, product development, and entrepreneurship domains. Being an enthusiastic blogger, he shares exciting developments & his experiences with designing & deploying cloud strategies through his blogs and ebooks. If you want an inside view of cloud deployment for real-world clients, don’t forget to follow his blog.

Follow me on Twitter

Vara Prasad Nulu has a masters degree in computer science and is working as a software developer with BitMin Infosystems.

He has extensive experience with web application development involving javascript frameworks, java and app engine. Prasad has published several research papers on data mining and analysis. Being an avid technology enthusiast, he analyses new trends in technology product development. He is currently impressed with the simplicity and breadth of the Google Cloud Platform and Google products.

A COMPLETE GUIDE TO GOOGLE CLOUD PLATFORM // 49

Prologue

On a day in 2006....

as the best cloud. Google achieved this

feat through its unbeatable pricing.

I still remember the day Amazon

Does this mean Google has won the

launched AWS, its cloud platform with

Cloud war? No! Because price is only

the S3 (a storage service). It was a

one of the variables that enterprises

bright sunny day with AWS being the

look at while picking the best cloud,

only cloud on the horizon.

there are a host of others and

we’ll introduce you to some of them

Fast forward to now... The cloud wars

here. The current state of the cloud

are on.

world has been shaped by history

among other things. Amazon had the

It’s raining cloud services and there are

early-mover advantage and used it to

umpteen number of cloud providers

capture a significant share of the cloud

competing as rivals for a bigger pie of

market. But Google is catching up fast.

the cloud market.

While we can’t predict who will emerge

Each day companies add new weap-

on the top, we can look at the evolution

ons to their arsenal, hoping one of

of cloud computing and understand its

them would win them the war. Google,

current dynamics as well as future

Amazon and Microsoft are the main

prospects. And maybe, just maybe,

rivals and battles of price, perfor-

you'll guess who is winning the cloud

mance, reliability and innovation are

war, by the time you turn to the last

fought every day. The price battle

page.

seems already won. An independent

expert recently benchmarked Google

A COMPLETE GUIDE TO GOOGLE CL

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O GOOGLE CL

ATFORM /

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/ 03

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Contents

Authors

Prologue

1. A Brief history of our time on the Cloud

2. Shifts in Cloud strategies: Rivalry/Evolution?

3. Starting your cloud Journey with the right partner

4. Architecture of a Cloud Platform

5. The 'Compute' in Cloud Computing

6.

Don't Grab a Passing Cloud (to Stash your Data)

7. Why networking matters

8. Why DBaaS is in Demand

9. Big Data Analytics - Data Driven Business success

10. The (Machine) Learning Enterprise

11. Why Google Cloud?

12. Planning your enterprise cloud strategy

Conclusion

Annexures

Annexure A: Building blocks of AWS and GCP

CHAPTER 1

A BRIEF HISTORY OF OUR TIME

ON THE CLOUD

The story of cloud computing so far

When John McCarthy first spoke of

computation being delivered as a

public utility, it was a distant possibili-

ty. But today cloud computing is a

reality; we spent a part of our lives on

the cloud in our virtual avatars. As

more and more services reach us via

the cloud, the consumption of cloud

services will continue to rise.

A host of developments paved way for

the emergence of cloud computing.

The advent of enabling technologies

like the internet, virtualization tech,

SOA architectures and widespread

broadband access were crucial to the

realization of the cloud computing

paradigm.

John McCarthy

Cloud computing Scientist

A COMPLETE GUIDE TO GOOGLE CLOUD PLATFORM // 05

How it all began

these vendors to experiment with

other deployment models. This led to

1999 After Salesforce launched

newer models like hybrid clouds, which

enterprise applications as a service,

combine the best of both public and

the SaaS wave caught on and many

private cloud models.

enterprises launched their own apps

via internet.

Google is a late entrant but is adding

product families and new services to

2006 The next development was the

its cloud portfolio faster than others.

arrival of Amazon Web Services (AWS)

Even on the price front, the massive

in 2006. AWS was the first to launch a

price cuts by major cloud vendors are

suite of cloud-based services. AWS

driving down the costs of cloud

allowed enterprises to rent both stor-

services quickly. Google is constantly

age and computing resources through

lowering the cost of cloud services as

its S3 and EC2 services. Amazon is

a part of its avowed mission to democ-

celebrating 10 years in the cloud in

ratize technology, especially IT.

2016 and is still the market leader

among Public cloud service providers.

Evolution of Cloud

2008 Google entered the fray with its

Computing: Competing

Google App Engine and is competing

to Contribute

with other cloud vendors like AWS and

Microsoft Azure in the provision of

The massive demand for cloud

cloud services.

services is spurring innovation through

competition. Cloud providers are

2009 Launch of browser-based

dropping prices and launching new

enterprise applications from vendors

products to win new clients.

like Google and Microsoft, Google

Apps and Microsoft office web apps

provided proof of concept for cloud

The silver lining

enabled service delivery by

demonstrating that online services

The fierce rivalry between Amazon and

were both easy to consume and

Google in the cloud space, has resulted

reliable.

in cutting edge tech getting

mainstreamed to the masses quickly.

2011 Although Amazon, Microsoft and

Let's look at a timeline of services

Google are primarily public cloud

launched by Google and Amazon to

providers, enterprise concerns on data

see how they are contributing to cloud

security and control, have pushed

evolution.

A COMPLETE GUIDE TO GOOGLE CLOUD PLATFORM // 06

Cloud Services Launched by Google & Amazon Amazon

Glacier

Amazon

AWS

Amazon

EC2

Elastic

Dynamo

Container

Amazon

Beanstalk

DB

Registry

Amazon

Relational

Amazon

EC2

AWS

Database

Direct

Amazon

Redshift

AWS

Service

Connect

Kineses

Data

Amazon

Amazon

Pipeline

Amazon

EC2

Amazon

AWS

Elastic

Amazon

S3

Load

Cloud

Container

Amazon

EMR

Cloud

Formation Balancing

Watch

Service

Route 53

2006

2008

2009

2011

2012

2013

2014

2015

2016

Google

Google

Google

Google

Google

Google

Cloud

App

Cloud

Compute

Cloud

Container

Cloud

Vision API

Engine

SQL

Engine

Datastore

Engine

Storage

Cloud

Nearline

Google

Google

Speech

Cloud

Cloud

Google

API

Storage

Dataflow

Container

ML

Standard

Registry

Google

Platform

Google

Cloud

Cloud

Google

BigQuery

Load

Bigtable

Data

Balancing

Studio

360

Network

Google

Load

Cloud

Google

Balancing

Pub/Sub

Data

Proc

Google entered the cloud game late, but the Alphabet Inc is not one to be left behind! Google is launching new products at a rapid pace to power the next wave of cloud evolution.

CHAPTER 2

SHIFTS IN CLOUD STRATEGIES:

RIVALRY / EVOLUTION?

Why it’s time to take a closer look

at enterprise cloud strategies!

The Cloud race is getting hotter; the

New Year began with major cloud

vendors like Amazon and Microsoft

announcing price cuts. Google

responded to these price changes by

announcing that its platform was still

the most economical option through a

company blog. So is the cloud rivalry

all about pricing? Definitely not! So

what shapes an enterprise cloud

strategy if not pricing? The past few

months saw some high-profile

enterprises make changes in their

cloud strategy. They tell the story of

Amazon Web Services (AWS) has a

how the cloud space is evolving and

product release schedule that’s

how enterprises are getting over their

enviable! It rolls out new features and

fears of storing restricted data on

services to millions of its users every

somebody else’s servers, as the cloud

year. News of high profile AWS users

keeps getting more secure.

like Spotify and Apple shifting to

Google has generated a lot of debate

Let’s take Amazon, it not only

in the recent months.

pioneered cloud computing but has

spent the last decade popularizing the

concept in the enterprise world.

A COMPLETE GUIDE TO GOOGLE CLOUD PLATFORM // 08

From a Trickle to a Roar

What is driving the shift

in Cloud strategies?

When Spotify announced its plans to

migrate to Google Cloud Platform, it

The proponents of cloud computing

left everyone baffled. The company

marketed the paradigm as a solution

had often been cited as a reference

to all, if not most enterprise IT

customer for amazon services. What

challenges. Moving operations

was dismissed as a one-off instance

off-premise was not only going to

by supporters of Amazon, soon turned

bring significant cost and time savings

into a headache when reports of

but would also free enterprises from

Apple following spotify to Google

vendor lock-in. Adoption of cloud

Cloud surfaced.

services would imply enterprises could

shift all or part of their workloads to

So, are AWS users really

rival vendors if they were delivering

better value on cost, performance and

looking for a better

security aspects. This was the

host?

promise of Cloud computing.

Enterprises are now seeing this

promise delivered.

Not really, unless you believe the

overexcited folks on twitter who see

this as the beginning of an end to

Why you need a fluid

Amazon’s dominance over the cloud

cloud strategy?

market.

Cloud technology is only a decade old

Let’s take a reality check

and is still evolving. Different vendors

1. Dropbox reduced its use of Amazon’s

in cloud space are accumulating

storage service (s3) as it was pursuing an advantages in niche segments. For

on-premise cloud strategy, which would

example, Google is leveraging its

require most of it users’ data to be stored in strengths in data processing to estab-in-house data centers.

lish its dominance in big data seg-

ment. A small enterprise might do

2. Apple may have shifted some of its

better with a vendor that’s having an

workloads to Google Cloud Platform but it

edge in a particular segment. While

still continues to use AWS too. Apple also large enterprises may use different

runs some of its operations on Microsoft

vendors for different product/service

Azure cloud. In Apple’s case, it’s simply

lines for the same reasons. Shifts in

following a multi-provider cloud strategy.

consumer preferences, data laws and

disruptive tech innovations are all

capable of

A COMPLETE GUIDE TO GOOGLE CLOUD PLATFORM // 09

engineering a change in an enterprise cloud strategy and are unrelated to vendor-side dynamics. Most companies are still experimenting with their supplier and product strategy to figure the best vendor mix for their product/service matrix. Therefore it’s pointless to discuss enterprise cloud strategies in absolute terms. All of the enterprise IT workloads may not operate on the cloud, only some of them might be. Similarly, an enterprise may have multiple cloud vendors servicing its different product or service lines. The reality is, firms are keeping their cloud strategy fluid to respond to changes in vendor and business environments. A fluid strategy also has a positive impact on the cloud ecosystem as it pushes providers to innovate.

But one thing is certain, as prices of cloud services continue to drop and providers add more functionality and features to their cloud platforms we will see greater adoption of cloud services in the future.

A COMPLETE GUIDE TO GOOGLE CLOUD PLATFORM // 10

CHAPTER 3

Starting Your Cloud Journey

With The Right Partner

Why startups must adopt a

Cloud-First Strategy!

The cloud computing space is

evolving. Vendors are finding their

niche segments and owning them.

But, why should all of this brouhaha

about cloud migration matter to you?

Is the ‘Anytime, Anywhere, Any Device’

computing model for everyone?

Is there a compelling business

Business Drivers for

case for universal cloud

Cloud Adoption

adoption?

1) The Cost Argument

Find Out!

Cloud computing is an efficient and

cost-effective way to deploy IT. Large

Moving to the cloud is not just about

cloud providers leverage economies of

adopting newer tech but there is a

scale to deliver low-cost computing

compelling business case to make the

resources to cloud users. If you are

shift.

operating on a cloud platform, you pay

for the exact amount of resources you

A COMPLETE GUIDE TO GOOGLE CLOUD PLATFORM // 11

consume. For SMBs and startups

collaboration tools are efficient and

working on a lean model, avoiding

easy-to-use. Cloud-delivered enterprise

expenditure on installation,

mobility management systems allow

maintenance, upgrades and support

companies to implement

costs can make a lot of difference.

Bring-Your-Own-Device (BYOD) policies

without worrying too much about data

2) Investment

security.

Startups and SMBs are often

constrained by tight budgets and using

5) Speed

the cloud to deliver services will imply

Virtual computing resources can be

costs are incurred as operational

commissioned in a few hours whereas

expenditure instead of capital

traditional mode of setting up IT infra-

expenditure. Operating on the cloud

structure takes weeks, if not months.

will also mean they don’t have to worry

For startups with ideas that need to be

about infrastructure provisioning. The

out in the market yesterday, adopting a

cloud provider would take over the

cloud-first strategy is the only means

responsibility of upgrading

to speed up product development.

infrastructure and maintaining it,

letting the enterprise focus on

Finally, each enterprise will differ in

application development.

why it embraces cloud computing.

Irrespective of why you migrate to the

3) Scalability

cloud, the approach to cloud adoption

Easy scalability is another advantage

must be properly planned and

of cloud adoption. Cloud providers

executed. It begins with choosing the

offer automatic scaling whenever

right vendor for your firm.

computing needs peak. If not for the

cloud, firms would have to create the

So, how to find your cloud

infrastructure to meet peak traffic

match?

demands and keep it idle for most of

the year. Being able to avoid

over-provisioning is a significant

What you must look for

advantage of moving to the cloud.

in a cloud vendor

4) Enterprise mobility

1) Performance & Uptime

Cloud adoption furthers enterprise

For high-speed delivery of

mobility by allowing users to work

applications, network performance is

from anywhere, at any time, and from

crucial. Check if your cloud provider

any device. Cloud-based business

has a low uptime.

A COMPLETE GUIDE TO GOOGLE CLOUD PLATFORM // 12

Not all cloud providers are made equal. Apart from the above attributes, it’s also important to check which cloud vendor matches your business objectives and your enterprise philosophy best.

2) Service Level Agreements

safety regulations.

and Reliability

Some cloud providers offer higher

7) Deployment models

levels of service and customer support

For most large enterprises uprooting

to differentiate themselves from their

their entire on-premise cloud work-

competitors.

loads and migrating them to a public

cloud maybe challenging and

3) Costs

unneces-sary. Enterprises may choose

Some cloud providers charge you for

to migrate only some of their

the actual number of servers you use,

workloads to the cloud and work with

whereas others charge you for the

a hybrid cloud strategy. It’s important

amount of time you keep them online.

to check if your cloud provider

Few vendors compute costs per hour

supports hybrid cloud configurations.

whereas others compute costs by the

minute.

8) Regional support

If business requirements or data

4) Technology Stack

safety laws mandate data localization

Cloud providers have services that

in a particular country or region, then it

work on particular software stacks. If

is necessary to check for regional

your app is built on a particular soft-

avail-ability of your cloud provider.

ware stack, you can simplify your

cloud migration by choosing a provider

9) Autoscaling

that supports the same software

Autoscaling is important for

stack.

applications that are likely to

experience demand peaks and

5) APIs and Vendor lock-in

troughs. Bringing more servers online

for handling higher workloads and

It is better to choose APIs backed by

taking them offline when not

multiple providers and vendors as it

necessary ensures you

reduces chances of vendor lock-in.

pay-as-you-use.

This makes cloud migration from one

provider to another easier.

10) Network connectivity

6) Security and compliance

Evaluating your cloud provider’s

network connectivity is crucial,

Data security concerns weigh heavily

particularly so if you are running

on the minds of enterprises wanting to

latency-sensitive applications on the

migrate to the cloud. Make sure that

cloud.

your cloud platform provider is compli-

ant with security standards and data

A COMPLETE GUIDE TO GOOGLE CLOUD PLATFORM // 13

CHAPTER 4

ARCHITECTURE OF A

CLOUD PLATFORM

Piecing the Cloud Puzzle together

What is a Cloud Platform?

A Cloud is a comprehensive platform

Compute

Storage

providing services that support appli-

cation development and hosting. The

Networking

Databases

services offered by a cloud platform

may be categorised into fundamental

services and higher level services. The

higher level services are built on top of

the fundamental layer.

The fundamental services offered by

Amazon and Google Cloud platforms

Let’s explore the essentials

are:

and add-ons of a cloud ser-

vices suite:

• Compute

A. Building-block services

• Storage

Any self-respecting cloud provider will

• Networking

have these fundamental services in his

arsenal.

• Databases

A COMPLETE GUIDE TO GOOGLE CLOUD PLATFORM // 14

B. Higher-level services

• Management services

Both vendors also offer higher level

Function: To track performance of

Services built on top the core stack of

applications running on the cloud

services. The services provided are

diverse and mostly meant to make

Examples: Amazon CloudWatch and

working on cloud easy by offering an

Google Cloud Monitoring

additional layer of abstraction or easier

management of deployments.

Both Amazon and Google cloud plat-

forms are backed by a robust set of

• Application services

basic services. But that’s not all! Both

Function: To optimise applications

are constantly innovating to

using the cloud.

strengthen core architecture further

and add higher level services. Both

Examples: AWS SNS and Google Cloud

Amazon and Google recently launched

Pub/Sub.

machine learning services as a new

product family. Machine Learning is

• Data services

expected to power the next wave of

Function: To enable processing of Big

enterprise IT products. Offering such

Data.

cutting edge tech as a cloud service is

the fastest way to mainstream its

Examples: Amazon Kinesis and Google

benefits, as developers everywhere

Cloud Dataflow

can now build apps that harness its

potential.

Google entered the cloud game late, but the Alphabet Inc is not one to be left behind! Google is launching new products at a rapid pace to power the next wave of cloud

evolution.

A COMPLETE GUIDE TO GOOGLE CLOUD PLATFORM // 15

CHAPTER 5

The ‘Compute’

In Cloud Computing

Cloud computing, as the name

suggests, refers to the provision of

computing power over the internet.

Let’s compare what our favorite

vendors Amazon and Google offer in

the IaaS-PaaS segment.

Amazon’s IaaS is called Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) and Google’s IaaS is known as Google Compute Engine (GCE)

Both IaaS services are robust and offer similar features under different names.

Feature

Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud Google Compute Engine Virtual Machines VMs

Instances

Virtual Machines, Instances

VM template

Amazon Machine Image

Image

Temporary VMs

Spot Instances

Preemptible VMs

Firewall

Security Groups

Google Compute Engine Firewall Rules

Scale-out

Auto Scaling

Autoscaler

Local attached disk

Ephemeral disk

Local SSD

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Virtual machines (VMs)

Both EC2 and GCE let you launch and terminate VMs/instances as required. Users have complete control over the instance. Both platforms support several instance types.

Instance types

Both EC2 and GCE provide some standard instance types each of which has defined amounts of CPU, RAM and network assigned to it. GCE also allows customised instances that you can configure to fit your particular workload.

Let’s look at the common instance types offered by both services: Machine Type

Shared Core

VMs for tasks that don’t require too many resources but have to stay online for longer durations.

Standard

VMs which provide a fine balance of compute, network and memory resources High Memory

VMs for tasks that need more memory relative to CPU resources High CPU

VMs for tasks that require more virtual CPUs relative to memory GPU

VMs that come with discrete GPU’s. Google doesn’t have this machine type.

SSD Storage

VMs that come with SSD local storage

Dense Storage

VMs that support greater amounts local HDD storage. Not Available in Google GCE and AWS support many of the same families of instance types but Google doesn’t offer two specialised families: GPUs and Large magnetic storage.

A COMPLETE GUIDE TO GOOGLE CLOUD PLATFORM // 17

Operating system sup-

instead of network connected ones to

port

enjoy faster transfer rates. The number

and size of disks offered to users by

both services are fixed and not

Both support a variety of operating

adjustable. Using a Local SSD in place

systems and charge licence fees.

of instance storage incurs extra cost.

Google lists the OS price separately,

whereas Amazon lists the combined

cost of OS plus instance.

Virtual machine import

Firewall

Both AWS and GCP allow you to

import VM images created on other

platforms to their platform. The actual

Both services offer programmable

import process is easier in AWS where-

firewalls based on software-defined

as Google requires conversion to

networking. You can configure a

compatible format and upload to

firewall to protect virtual machines and

Google cloud storage to allow import.

networks used by your applications.

But VM import ensures the workloads

run on on-premise servers are usable

Scale-out

and need not be repeated.

Auto scaling brings elasticity to cloud

Pricing model

deployments. Both services support

auto-scaling that scale up or down in

EC2 and GCE offer very similar pricing

response to conditions set out in

models. Both services only charge you

Scaling Plan or Policy. These instances

for instances for the length of time

are launched from pre-defined

that you use them. With Amazon, each

templates. The auto-scaling in Amazon

instance type is charged per hour, and

can be set in motion in three ways:

in Google you are charged by the

Manually, scheduled to start based on

minute.

time or dynamically based on an Alarm

(Cloudwatch/SQS queue). But Google

Both offer discounts for long duration

offers only dynamic auto-scaling

usage but differ in how they do it.

option.

Amazon lets you barter flexibility for a

lower price through its Reserved

Local attached storage

instances (RIs). RIs work by asking

you to commit to a certain number of

In both EC2 and GCE, users can

instances for 1-3 years and also pay

commission disks local to a VM

upfront. The discount is proportional to

A COMPLETE GUIDE TO GOOGLE CLOUD PLATFORM // 18

the term and amount of upfront

AWS’s Elastic Beanstalk and GCP’s

payment.

App Engine. AWS Elastic Beanstalk

(EBS) and App Engine (GAE) are similar

Google’s discounts work automatically

services with slightly different

without any upfront payments or

approaches. Both the services offer

long-term commitments. Google

auto-scaling, load balancing and moni-

applies a discount proportional the

toring services. EBS requires the kind

length of instance usage once the

of system administration that raw VMs

instance runs for a specified duration.

require whereas GAE is a fully man-

It calls this a Sustained Use discount

aged service in which all admin tasks

and the savings from this sometimes

are managed by provider. EBS gives

amount to almost 30% off on the

greater control and flexibility to devel-

standard on-demand rate. No wonder

opers whereas GAE is easier to

Google is winning the price war!

manage and can be launched quickly.

GAE frees developers from routine

Apart from these basic services, both

tasks of infrastructure management

Google and amazon offer greater

and lets them focus on developing

abstraction through their

product features.

Platform-as-Service (PaaS) services,

The choice of a particular IaaS/PaaS will hinge on the requirements of a specific workload and the preference of developer team for

greater/lesser control over the underlying infrastructure. Take the case of Snapchat, they needed their product to be launched quickly and choose a fully managed service, GAE to fulfill this objective.

A COMPLETE GUIDE TO GOOGLE CLOUD PLATFORM // 19

CHAPTER 6

Don’t Grab a Passing

Cloud (to stash your data)

Learn which cloud storage

solutions are the best!

Cloud vs. Cloud: Where

to Keep Your Valuables

Data is the new currency; we live in a

digitised world that generates

Zettabytes of data each year. The

world’s biggest enterprises are sitting

on vast data gold mines. But,

enterprises are struggling to safely

store the increasing amounts of data

Cloud storage is akin to leasing a bank

coming their way. They have to

vault. Vendors maintain these for

commit a lot of resources to building,

enterprises at low costs. Additionally,

maintaining and upgrading enterprise

moving data to cloud storage

storage infrastructure. Here, the cloud

automatically ensures data

comes to their rescue!

redundancy and data security.

Why, enterprises are moving to on-cloud

storage solutions is no-brainer!

A COMPLETE GUIDE TO GOOGLE CLOUD PLATFORM // 20

Quick deployment, low operational

COLD — data archiving

burden, zero maintenance headaches

• Amazon Glacier

and Pay per use costing offered by the

Cloud are hard to ignore.

Comparing the Storage

Both Amazon and Google offer

services of AWS and

cloud-based storage solutions as part

of their cloud platform services.

GCP

Their services are roughly similar with

no clear frontrunners in pricing,

First, let’s compare the ‘cold

performance and reliability aspects as

storage’ services provided by

of now.

Amazon and Google:

Types of Cloud Storage

A. Google Nearline vs. AWS

Classes

Glacier

Cloud providers offer different cloud

Google launched Nearline in 2015 with

storage classes that can be grouped

a promise of very quick retrieval time

into four tiers: Hot, Warm, Cool and

at a very low cost. Nearline’s 2-5

Cold. These services differ in

second retrieval time created a stir

parameters like speed of access, cost,

among users, but we all know when

frequency of use and durability.

something’s too good to be true, right?

Nearline limits data retrieval to

HOT — object storage for frequently

4MB/sec for every TB stored, while

accessed data

Amazon has no such restrictions.

• Amazon S3 Standard

What this caveat means for users is:

• Google Cloud Storage standard

downloads will start within 2-5 secs

but will take a long time to complete.

WARM

Unless users are working with massive

— frequently accessed

amounts of data, Amazon Glacier will

non-critical reproducible data

deliver better on retrieval times than

• Amazon S3 RRS

Nearline.

• Google Cloud Storage DRA

Google recently released a feature

COOL — less frequently but rapidly

called on-demand I/O to address this

accessible data

challenge. On-demand I/O lets users

• Amazon S3 Standard I/A

increase throughput when they have to

• Google Cloud Storage Nearline

retrieve content at a faster rate than

the default 4MB/s.

A COMPLETE GUIDE TO GOOGLE CLOUD PLATFORM // 21

A more detailed comparison

While Nearline is the winner in accessi-

of Nearline and Glacier:

bility and speed, there is no real big

difference in price between the two

1. In Retrieval and Transfer of data,

services. Would Nearline kill Amazon’s

Glacier is better

Glacier service? Not in the near future.

The war has just begun in this

Amazon gives 5% free retrieval on

segment; and enterprises should

amount of data stored and has a low

watch out for upgrades.

charge after that, Google’s costs are

higher. But though it’s cheaper than

Now let’s make a quick comparison of

Nearline, Amazon has different pricing

S3 and Google Cloud Storage services:

for different regions unlike Google

which offers the same price world-

B. Amazon S3 vs. Google

wide.

Cloud Storage

2. In Data Override and Deletion, Near-

Both S3 and Cloud Storage are similar

line is the winner

services with some minor differences,

let’s consider the important ones:

If you need to delete data often, say

every month or two, then Nearline is

the better option as it charges lower

for early deletion.

1. Google supports chunked encoding

and resumable uploads. Both of these

3. In Data Access Time, Nearline

features are handy when you are

provides hassle-free access

streaming.

No need to request access and wait

2. Amazon gives users more regions to

for a couple of hours for the data to be

choose from, while Google only sup-

made available, in Nearline the data

ports US and EU at the moment.

can be accessed at will in 3secs!

3. Google lacks explicit regional control

4. In Download Speed, Nearline beats

like S3.

Glacier for larger datasets but is a poor

performer otherwise.

4. The best part about S3? It is well

integrated with other AWS services like

Amazon’s Glacier has long been the

CloudFront and EC2. But, Cloud Stor-

industry standard when it comes to

age is mostly a standalone service.

secure, low-cost storage services used

Amazon also allows free access

for data archiving and online backups.

between S3 and EC2, unlike Google,

which charges users for accessing its

A COMPLETE GUIDE TO GOOGLE CLOUD PLATFORM // 22

Cloud Storage from App Engine.

move to cloud-based storage:

Amazon’s Simple Storage Service (S3)

1. Don't let capacity pricing lead your

has long been the industry standard

decision process.

for object storage. Google has to offer

2. Don’t forget to consider transaction

something far better than what it does

and management costs

now to really make a dent in Amazon’s

3. Lastly, look at the provider ecosys-

armour.

tem and how it fits your cloud adoption

plan.

Tips to help pick the right

Cloud Storage service:

Here are some criteria to consider

Once the features and pricing are

when choosing a cloud storage

considered, the final item on an enter-

service:

prise checklist should be the ease of

management inherent in a solution.

1. Durability

The best cold storage architecture will

offer a well-developed management

2. Availability

layer. Enterprises must look for

innovative products that allow

3. Performance

intelligent management of data and its

seamless integration with other

4. Capacity cost

business processes.

5. Monitoring and Access

If you are an enterprise looking to

6. Life Cycle Management

Google came to the storage segment late but is trying to stand out by shining on the price front.

Having been around longer, AWS has a larger set of partners, integrators and network providers working with it compared to Google. Google will need some

‘Killer’ upgrades to popularize its

storage services among non-GCP users.

A COMPLETE GUIDE TO GOOGLE CLOUD PLATFORM // 23

CHAPTER 7

Why Networking

Matters

The right network is fast,

reliable and scalable

When the Music Stops

Playing

applications unlike Amazon which

‘The show must go on’ is what Netflix

hosts popular apps like Netflix.

users might say to Amazon regarding

its network outage last June. The brief

Is Networking the

outage took down popular services like

Netflix and pinterest for almost an

Achilles heel of cloud

hour.

vendors?

Network outages are an issue for most

The Google cloud outage on April 11,

public cloud providers. Google which

2016 was a setback for Google’s

prides itself on its strong networking

efforts to win over enterprise IT

architecture also experienced an

customers. The outage didn't just

outage just this month (April 11, 2016).

affect one availability zone, but all

Google’s outage affected users in all

regions. In comparison, rival Amazon

zones but went mostly unnoticed.

has suffered regional outages but has

Reason?

so far avoided its entire platform going

1. Google has a relatively small

down. These episodes tell us that:

market share in the cloud space

2. Very few GCP clients run

Sending your IT ops to the cloud

low-latency interactive web traffic

carries significant risk.

A COMPLETE GUIDE TO GOOGLE CLOUD PLATFORM // 24

COLD — data archiving

• Amazon Glacier

Comparing the Storage

services of AWS and

GCP

First, let’s compare the ‘cold

storage’ services provided by

Amazon and Google:

A. Google Nearline vs. AWS

Glacier

Google launched Nearline in 2015 with

a promise of very quick retrieval time

at a very low cost. Nearline’s 2-5

second retrieval time created a stir

among users, but we all know when

something’s too good to be true, right?

Nearline limits data retrieval to

4MB/sec for every TB stored, while

Amazon has no such restrictions.

What this caveat means for users is:

downloads will start within 2-5 secs

but will take a long time to complete.

Unless users are working with massive

amounts of data, Amazon Glacier will

deliver better on retrieval times than

Nearline.

Google recently released a feature

called on-demand I/O to address this

challenge. On-demand I/O lets users

increase throughput when they have to

retrieve content at a faster rate than

the default 4MB/s.

The curious case of

go ahead and create backups of your

empty inboxes

important data independently. When it

comes to crucial data, never assume

someone else is automatically protect-

Outages are not new to the cloud

ing you.

world, some of the worst ones saw

users logging into empty email

Lesson 4: Even the best laid

accounts wiped of all data. Vendors

could restore the data in some cases

plans don’t work

and not in the others. So what do the

networking failures of the past teach

Google had anticipated the problems

enterprise cloud users? Let’s find out!

that caused the April 11, 2016 outage.

It has the necessary measures in place

to avoid disruptions, but they failed to

Lesson 1: Assume it will fail

work. In rare but real instances bugs

can bypass safety mechanisms and

It’s natural for networks and data

multi-layered data protection networks

centers to suffer glitches. Just

to cause significant damage. Test your

because your cloud provider is now

safety measures rigorously.

handling network reliability doesn’t

mean it will never fail. While planning

Lesson 5: Don’t keep all your

your cloud strategy ensure adequate

redundancy by avoiding over-reliance

eggs in one basket

on any single vendor or service to drive

your core architecture.

We have talked a lot about redundan-

cy. You already have crucial data

Lesson 2: Build Redundancy

tucked away on multiple servers, in

different regions, there seems to be

nothing more you can do! Well, it never

Reliability is dependent on redundancy.

hurts to go the extra mile and spread it

Multiple copies of data spread across

across vendors too, as the ultimate

different availability zones are key to

failsafe.

weathering a cloud failure storm.

Lesson 3: Have a Contingency

Feel like revisiting your

Plan

decision to migrate?

Even the most sophisticated disaster

The whole point of getting on the cloud

recovery systems are not completely

was to sign away the ‘grunt work’ of

fool-proof. It’s ok to be paranoid here,

infrastructure and network

A COMPLETE GUIDE TO GOOGLE CLOUD PLATFORM // 25

maintenance to your cloud host.

Things you can do with GCP

The responsibility for building a

resilient cloud network certainly rests

Create secure firewalls for VMs in Google

with the cloud provider. So, while

Compute Engine

choosing a cloud vendor cross-check

Design faster connections between

the level of redundancy they offer to

database nodes in Cloud Bigtable

users.

Provision network resources for faster

delivery of query results in BigQuery

Outages or Not, the

Comparing the Network-

cloud is here to stay!

ing Product Suites of

Service disruptions due to cloud

AWS & GCP

outages may make the cloud seem

unreliable, which is not true. The cloud

I. Load balancing

will continue to have a lot more

operational success than an individual

Load balancers when configured

enterprise network. But since the cloud

properly distribute incoming traffic

operates web scale its failures often

across multiple VMs making apps

get amplified.

more fault tolerant.

Comparing the

Scaling pattern

Both Amazon’s Elastic Load Balancer

Networking Services of

(ELB) and Google Compute Engine

Google and Amazon

Load Balancer respond to traffic by

scaling up or down the amount of

capacity necessary to meet the traffic

AWS networking and Google Cloud

being passed through it. Google

Platform (GCP) networking have

Compute Engine Load Balancer

considerable differences in their

responds in real time without a delay

design. GCP networking is global and

or pre-warming unlike Amazon’s ELB.

is available to all its services unlike

Amazon which limits it to compute

Pricing model

instances. GCP boasts of a soft-

Both load balancing services use the

ware-defined networking architecture

same pricing model. An hourly rate for

based on Google’s Andromeda. This

load balancer and a separate charge

architecture allows the creation of

on the amount of traffic handled by the

networking elements at any level and

load balancer are billed to customers.

supports customization of the network

to your needs.

A COMPLETE GUIDE TO GOOGLE CLOUD PLATFORM // 26

II. Peering

A peering service allows customers to connect to a cloud service directly over a network.

The peering services offered by AWS & GCP

Feature

AWS

Google Cloud Platform

Virtual Private

VPC-VPN

Cloud VPN

Network

Carrier Peering

Direct Connect

Carrier Interconnect

Direct Peering

N/A

Direct Peering

CDN Peering

N/A

CDN Interconnect

A. Virtual private network

private, dedicated line, and not via a

Creating a virtual private network, or

3rd party provider. Amazon does not

VPN, from one location to another

offer this service, Google does.

allows you to create a secured, private

link between two networks over the

D. Content delivery network

public internet. Both AWS and Google

(CDN) peering

Cloud Platform offer this as a service.

Content delivery network (CDN)

peering is similar to carrier peering but

B. Carrier peering

instead of peering your facility with the

Sometimes connecting to a cloud

cloud provider, it connects your cloud

through a VPN won’t satisfy your

resources to a CDN. Google offers this

speed/ security needs, in which case,

service through CDN Interconnect and

leasing a private network connection

Amazon through its own CDN service,

with guaranteed capacity assigned to

Cloudfront.

it is beneficial. Both Amazon and

Google offer this service in conjunction

Pricing of Peering Services

with partners.

AWS and GCP charge for VPN services

the same way, at an hourly rate.

C. Direct peering

For peering services, Google is the

In Direct peering you directly connect

more economical option, as it does not

to your cloud provider through a

charge for direct peering and CDN

Interconnect.

A COMPLETE GUIDE TO GOOGLE CLOUD PLATFORM // 27

III. DNS

geographic-based routing or laten-

cy-based routing queries.

DNS translates domain names into a

numeric IP that servers can use to

IV. BONUS! Live Migration in

connect with each other. Managed

GCP

DNS services like Amazon Route 53

and Google Cloud DNS are close in

Another advantage of working with

feature parity. However, Amazon offers

GCP networking is the availability of

two additional routing options not

live migration. Hardware failures

available to GCP users,

happen in all data centers; in the event

geography-based routing and

of a hardware failure GCP can move

latency-based routing.

VMs from affected hardware to

Pricing

functioning hardware automatically

Both services charge similar prices but

without customer intervention.

AWS charges higher for

All major vendors suffer the occasional network glitches that affect their Service Levels. A recent benchmarking of cloud providers by an

independent expert ranked Amazon higher for "Service Level". But Google ranked best on pricing, making it clear that GCP offers the best

networking performance for the money.

A COMPLETE GUIDE TO GOOGLE CLOUD PLATFORM // 28

CHAPTER 8

Why DBaaS is in

Demand

Demand New Enterprise W arehouse

Address: ‘The Cloud’

Database as a service (DBaaS) joins

the ranks of IaaS, SaaS and PaaS on

the list of enterprise favourite cloud

services. Why? Because, DBaaS lets

you have ‘IT’ your way and solves

challenges inherent in the traditional

on-premise model.

Learn how DBaaS does data-

base management better

• DBaaS enhances security.

• DBaaS reduces database sprawl. You

probably have your data spread across

• Centralised management of

many collections, and operating in

databases is also made possible by

silos, if you are working with a legacy

automation. Cloud Databases are

data warehousing model. With DBaaS,

undoubtedly the future of enterprise

you move your data out of silos to a

database systems.

single powerful database cloud.

Let’s take a look at the cloud database

• DBaaS supports rapid provisioning

model:

and auto-scaling to any size.

A COMPLETE GUIDE TO GOOGLE CLOUD PLATFORM // 29

Cloud Database

Because DBaaS:

A cloud database runs on a cloud

1. Is a scalable on-demand platform

computing platform. Cloud users can

2. Is more manageable

purchase access to a database service

managed by a cloud provider.

3. Provides improved security

Database as a Service

4. Has monitoring capabilities to track

performance, issue alerts on threats.

(DBaaS) model

5. Supports simple data analytics

In this model, DBaaS provider takes

responsibility for installing and main-

6. Offers better Price-to-performance

taining client’s database and, applica-

ratio than legacy systems

tion owners will have to pay according

What is "managed" by

to their usage.

the Provider?

Architecture of DBaaS

If you sign a DBaaS provider to

Service

manage your enterprise database, it

does:

DBaaS service lets end user launch,

configure and track database

1. Patches and Updates

instances through a web-based

console. The user communicates with

2. Manages Backups

the database instance using an API,

and can perform maintenance and

3. Configures replication

scaling operations.

4. Provides for automatic failover in

A managed service vests the

event of zone outage

responsibility of ensuring scalability

and high availability with the service

5. Ensures data security through

provider.

auto-updating security and data

encryption. Additionally, in Google

Why should enterprises shift

DBaaS users get to achieve a high level

of customization. The user can config-

to DBaaS from on-premise

ure availability, replication and backups

legacy systems?

to suit a particular database instance

need. For example, users can skip

replications and automatic failover for

A COMPLETE GUIDE TO GOOGLE CLOUD PLATFORM // 30

development instances while keeping

Cloud SQL is flexible on three

production instances fully protected.

important fronts:

Cloud databases are of

• Flexible scaling, something not

usually associated with relational

two types:

databases.

1. Relational (SQL) databases

• Flexible connectivity from any

application, running anywhere. Users

2. Non-relational (NoSQL) databases

can connect to their database from

any application (e.g. Compute Engine,

Comparing Amazon &

Managed VMs, etc.,) through the

internet.

Google cloud platform

DBaaS services

• Flexibility in launch and termination

of database instances. This can be

accomplished using the Cloud console

Amazon and Google’s DBaaS services

provided by the service.

were born out of their internal data-

base management models. Both

Flexibility helps deliver cost

Amazon and Google offer differentiat-

savings by keeping databases live

ed products in this category:

only when needed.

AWS has three main database services

lined up for its clients

Google also has a strong partner

ecosystem to help make Cloud SQL

• Amazon Relational Database Service

use easier. Itspartners have launched

(RDS)

tools that streamline the loading of

data into Cloud SQL, besides

• Amazon DynamoDB

monitoring and visualisation tools to

• Amazon Simple DB

help better CloudSQL implementation.

Google also offers three DBaaS

Amazon’s RDS service is similar to

products that are equivalent to AWS

Google’s Cloud SQL in its feature set.

services

Google, however, has a better

price-performance ratio.

A. Google Cloud SQL

An Easy-to-use, fully managed MySQL

B. Cloud Datastore

database service. Amazon offers a

Cloud Datastore is a NoSQL database

similar service, Amazon RDS.

service. Like other Google DBaaS

A COMPLETE GUIDE TO GOOGLE CLOUD PLATFORM // 31

services it is highly Scalable and has

the same price for an operation

high availability and reliability. It is

irrespective of its nature. Amazon,

designed to easily integrate with other

charges more for writes than reads

Google Cloud Platform Apps.

and consistent reads are more expen-

sive than eventually consistent reads.

C. Google Cloud Bigtable

Google uses this NoSQL database

Google doesn’t have differentiated

service to power its own core services

pricing for read-heavy and write-heavy

like search, analytics, maps and Gmail.

applications, making its services

It is a tried and tested tool for handling

cheaper. Additionally, Google’s Bigtable

large analytical and operational work-

scales seamlessly and is well integrat-

loads. It can handle big data workloads

ed with the rest of the Google Cloud

at low latency and deliver high

Platform services like Cloud Dataproc

throughput. BigTable was introduced

and BigQuery.

in 2015. Amazon has an equivalent

service in Dynamo DB, which was

Pricing

launched much earlier in 2012.

Cloud Bigtable has two pricing param-

DynamoDB was Amazon’s second

eters: price per node and price for the

managed NoSQL service after

amount of data stored. DynamoDB

SimpleDB (2007).

charges users based on the amount of

data stored. As usual, Amazon offers

Comparing BigTable and

discounted prices for DynamoDB

Reserved Capacity (RC). But, RC

DynamoDB when used

requires an upfront payment and 1-3

on-demand

year commitment. Google is yet again

the economical option thanks to its

sustained use discount model and no

Bigtable is the cheaper option and

upfront charges or long-term signup

unlike its counterpart Amazon charges

clauses.

Google is fast closing the gap with rival Amazon in the cloud computing space. Google’s busy launch calendar sees it debut products similar to AWS in all major product families throughout the year. Despite being a late entrant, Google has quickly risen to deliver the best performance for the price in the DBaaS segment too.

A COMPLETE GUIDE TO GOOGLE CLOUD PLATFORM // 32

CHAPTER 9

BIG DATA ANALYTICS:DATA

DRIVEN BUSINESS SUCCESS

Don’t be data rich &

Insight Poor anymore!

Data is growing exponentially and

more of it is generated every day and

the trend shall continue in future.

Enterprises are struggling to stay on

top of this data deluge! The IoT

revolution is set to further fan this data

avalanche. So, what does the future

hold?

Well, companies like to hoard data,

atleast the ones with resources do.

Democratization of Big

Unfortunately, data has a limited

lifespan within which it can generate

Data

actionable business intelligence for

Public cloud data processing services

enterprises. But, getting meaningful

from vendors like amazon and google

insights from terabytes of data

put big data analytics within the reach

requires computing and storage

of startups and SMBs. This move

muscle, something only large enter-

towards democratization of Big Data is

prises could afford until sometime

gaining steam with major players

ago.

competing along cost and innovation

fronts. A lot of this innovation is

Then came…

fuelled by the digital transformation

happening in enterprise landscape.

A COMPLETE GUIDE TO GOOGLE CLOUD PLATFORM // 33

So, why are enterprises

The massive demand for analytics

betting big on ‘Big data’?

services means that all the major

cloud vendors now offer real-time data

stream processing and analytics to

Companies are now looking to improve

their consumers. Google has gone

savings and increase ROI through

further and launched a unified

evidence based decision making,

programming model that combines

largely driven by Big Data Analytics.

batch and stream processing in one

Firms are now making resource alloca-

product, Google’s cloud Dataflow.

tion decisions and judging marketing

effectiveness using real-time analysis

Google is adding new features and

of consumer behavior.

cutting down prices in its Data

warehousing and analytics segment.

Use cases of Google’s Big Data Analytics

It announced a reduction in the prices

1.Spotify

of BigQuery at the NEXT customer

Take the case of Spotify, Spotify uses

conference in 2016. The change made

Google’s Big data analytics services like Big

long term storage cheaper for its

query and Dataflow to generate personalized

customers by automatically reducing

music recommendations for its users.

storage price by 50% after 90 days.

Google also keeps simplifying the

2.Dominos

analytics game by adding

Dominos aggregates all the data from its

sophisticated data visualization tools

multi-channel distribution network and uses

like Google Data Studio 360 that aggre-

Google analytics premium services and

gate all analytics workflows into one

BigQuery to ascertain which of its marketing

tool.

campaigns are working.

Comparing Google’s Analytics services with Amazon Both Amazon and Google offer comparable services in analytics segment.

A COMPLETE GUIDE TO GOOGLE CLOUD PLATFORM // 34

Often comparisons are drawn between Amazon’s RedShift and Google BigQuery, but both differ in pricing, ease of use and flexibility.

Amazon’s Redshift runs on a self-provisioning model and you pay for the amount of time that the servers are kept online.

In Google BigQuery, there is automatic provisioning of resources as it is a completely abstracted system that works on a No Ops model. The pricing is more economical when compared to amazon. And with the recent drop in prices for long term storage, Google surely wins the price battle vis-a-vis other Big Data Cloud Service vendors.

Plus, Google strengths lie in data management and its data centers are optimized for scaling and analytics. The reason cited by Spotify for its shift to Google cloud platform also talks of google’s superiority in the provision of data services.

“Spotify chose Google in part because its services for analyzing large amounts of data, tools like BigQuery, are more advanced than data services from other cloud provides.”

-Nicholas Harteau, VP of Infrastructure, Spotify The next round of cloud adoption will be driven by enterprises launching IoT products. Since IoT products are inherently data-intensive, they will drive further adoption of Google cloud

platform services.

A COMPLETE GUIDE TO GOOGLE CLOUD PLATFORM // 35

CHAPTER 10

The (Machine) Learning

Enterprise

Why plain ole SaaS is passé

IBM Is About to Become the

Best Weather Forecaster Ever –

WIRED, 10.28.15

reasons to write another article around

Machine learning technique

machine learning possibilities. Google

boosts lip-reading accuracy –

is adding to the buzz with the launch

TechCrunch, Mar 24, 2016

of its machine learning platform and

ML email app Inbox.

How Google’s AI Auto-Magically

Answers Your Emails –

WIRED, 03.17.16

Before we compare how public cloud

mega vendors like Amazon and Google

The Next Wave Of Enterprise

are mainstreaming this powerful tech

Software Powered By Machine

for everyone, everywhere, let’s under-

Learning – TechCrunch, Jul 27, 2015

stand what Machine Learning (ML) is

and does:

Machine Learning (ML)….you can’t

ignore the buzz around it these days.

Machine learning is the science of

Every tech conference you attend

recognizing patterns in large data sets

people are waxing eloquent about how

and making predictions based on

it’s the future of enterprise IT. Tech

mining Big Data. ML applications work

magazines too seem to be fishing for

with not just large but wide data to

A COMPLETE GUIDE TO GOOGLE CLOUD PLATFORM // 36

generate predictive and prescriptive

4. It currently doesn’t allow extension/

insights to guide enterprise deci-

creation of algorithms and also has

sion-making. ML algorithms improve

limited settings for tuning the algo-

over time and with every use.

rithm for optimization.

ML is powering many services we use

5. Amazon ML also supports evalua-

ranging from the recommendation

tion of algorithms using performance

engines on Netflix, Youtube to the

metrics

Smart Reply feature in Gmail.

Now let’s see what Google did

Looks like machine learning will be

for cloud machine learning…

the magic potion that

spices up the next wave of apps we

Google launched its Machine learning

use.

Platform at the GCP NEXT conference

in 2016. Google’s ML services include

Now let’s compare AWS and

Google Prediction API and its

GCP Machine learning Services:

pre-trained models Cloud Vision API,

Cloud Speech API and Cloud Translate

Amazon launched its machine learning

API. It also open sourced the machine

services in April 2015 for existing AWS

learning technology that powers its

customers.

apps to developers all over the world.

Google TensorFlow machine learning

Some features of Amazon ML

library can now be used by developers

to build sophisticated new algorithms.

1. Amazon ML includes a wizard that

helps those with little or no-prior intro-

Google Machine

duction to ML get started with the

Learning Platform

service.

2. Amazon ML is designed to work

The platform has two main parts

with other AWS services like Redshift

and S3. But if you are not an AWS user

1. One which allows developers to

you will first need to move your data to

build ML models from their own data

Amazon to use its ML service.

2. Another offers developers

3. Amazon ML offers limited data

pre-trained models

cleaning and data transformation

capabilities

A COMPLETE GUIDE TO GOOGLE CLOUD PLATFORM // 37

Google ML allows developers to train their ML models by allowing easy access to other Google Cloud services.

Developers can access data from services like Dataflow, Bigquery, Dataproc, Cloud Storage and Cloud Datalab and train their algorithms on this data.

Some of the pre-trained models offered on GCP:

· Cloud Vision API

· Translate API

· Cloud Speech API

Several apps built atop these pre-trained models are already being launched to customers.

The Buzz seems real and looks like Machine Learning as a Service will drive the next round of enterprise cloud adoption. Google is the clear frontrunner vis-à-vis rival Amazon in Machine Learning Services.

A COMPLETE GUIDE TO GOOGLE CLOUD PLATFORM // 38

CHAPTER 11

Why Google Cloud?

Hear what Spotify &

Snapchat say!

Spotify, a popular music streaming

service announced a shift to GCP in

Spotify - Google

Feb 2016.

Music to ears

The story of Spotify’s shift to Google in

their own words:

providing a streaming experience that

Note: Excerpts from Spotify’s company

feels as though you have all the music

blog explaining the shift have been

in the world on your phone.

used.

How we did it until now:

Let us introduce ourselves:

Historically, we’ve taken a traditional

Company most often associated with

approach to doing this: buying or

amazing music recommendations and

leasing data center space, server

awesome parties

hardware and networking gear as

close to our customers as possible.

We are:

Announcing Spotify Infrastructure’s

Why not use the Cloud like others?

Googley Future

Operating our own data centers may

be a pain, but the core cloud services

Why it’s a big deal:

were not at a level of quality, perfor-

At Spotify we are obsessed with

mance and cost that would make

A COMPLETE GUIDE TO GOOGLE CLOUD PLATFORM // 39

cloud a significantly better option for

Snapchat - Google

Spotify in the long run. As they say:

better the devil you know…

What changed now?

Recently that balance has shifted. The

storage, compute and network

services available from cloud providers

are as high quality, high performance

Snap & Share via Google!

and low cost as what the traditional

approach provides. This makes the

move to the cloud a no brainer for us.

Unlike others of its ilk, Snapchat, the

de facto social platform for millennials

Why Google?

built its wildly successful app on

What really tipped the scales towards

Google bypassing AWS.

Google for us however has been our

experience with Google’s data platform

Here is what Snapchat co-founder

and tools. Good infrastructure isn’t just

Bobby Murphy said about why they

about keeping things up and running

chose to develop on Google’s App

it’s about making all of our teams more

Engine:

efficient and more effective and Goo-

gle’s data stack does that for us in

Easy to Use

spades.

“App Engine enabled us to focus on

developing the application. We

The one thing that tipped the balance:

wouldn’t have gotten here without the

Google has long been a thought leader

ease of development that App Engine

in this space (data warehousing &

gave us.”

analytics), and this shows in the

Bobby Murphy CTO and co-Founder

sophistication and quality of its data

offerings. From traditional batch

Auto Scaling

processing with Dataproc, to rock solid

"Cloud Platform gives you upfront ease

event delivery with Pub/Sub to the

of use with the added comfort of

nearly magical abilities of BigQuery,

knowing whatever you are building, if it

building on Google’s data infrastruc-

needs to, will scale ad infinitum."

ture provides us with a significant

— Bobby Murphy, CTO, and co-founder

advantage where it matters the most.

Launch Quickly

Our Final thoughts:

“And, at the time, obviously our biggest

We’re pretty excited about our Googley

priority was to get a product in the

future and hope you’ll find it interesting

too.

A COMPLETE GUIDE TO GOOGLE CLOUD PLATFORM // 40

hands of users in the world - in the

interest, with some speculating that it

real world - as quickly as possible”

signaled an end to Amazon’s domina-

-Bobby Murphy, CTO, and co-founder

tion of the cloud computing world.

Let us focus on Adding New features

But truth is, Apple has not migrated

“Biggest benefit is just the fact that we

to Google Lock, stock and barrel. It

can focus much less on maintaining

still uses AWS, Microsoft Azure

infrastructure, and much more on

alongside its own data centers to

building new stuff.”

host its inter-net services.

-Bobby Murphy, CTO, and co-founder

In Feb 2016, Morgan Stanley had

Update: Snapchat is now the third

reported that Apple spent around $1

most popular social app among millen-

billion per year on Amazon’s AWS. A

nials.

part of this money will now flow to

Google’s coffers.

#Snapchat: 100 million active users,

9000 snaps shared every second

But, Apple’s move to GCP should be

Click to Tweet

seen as a diversification strategy

instead of a competitive defection.

Despite rapid growth, the app built

on Google App Engine hasn't expe-

Why?

rienced any major outages

It still uses AWS and Microsoft

Azure platforms besides GCP and its

own data center

It is spending billions of dollars on

Apple - Google

building new data centers to reduce

its dependence on cloud vendors.

But Apple’s move is a ‘shot in the arm’

for Google. The deal said to be worth

$400-$600 million in revenue, comes

Data meets design

at a time when Google is trying hard to

win new enterprise clients to its plat-

form. The deal puts a stamp of approv-

Tech news site CRN reported that

al on Google’s Cloud services from its

Apple signed a deal with Google to use

major rival Apple.

the search giant’s Cloud Platform for

some of its iCloud services in March

2016. The news generated a lot of

A COMPLETE GUIDE TO GOOGLE CLOUD PLATFORM // 41

CHAPTER 12

Planning Your Enterprise

Cloud Strategy

What You Should Put

On Your Wish List!

Enterprise Cloud Strategy Planner

Identify business objectives to be met by migration Design a Cloud strategy

(Hire an outside specialist if required)

Identify applications/workloads that can be moved to the cloud Decide upon a cloud deployment model

(Private/Public/Hybrid)

Decide on a vendor strategy

(Single or Multi-vendor)

Select Cloud Platform(s) & Implementation Partner Create a Roadmap

• Break strategy into a set of actionable items

• Map each actionable item to accompanying benefits

• Identify quick wins for early implementation Develop Benchmarks to assess Cloud success

A COMPLETE GUIDE TO GOOGLE CLOUD PLATFORM // 42

Startup?

b. Has handled similar projects in

the past

Let’s tweak the plan a

c. Offers competitive pricing

little….

d. Has some understanding of

1. Set out the Idea

business/industry being targeted

2. Explore both on-cloud and off-cloud

e. Takes ownership of

development options

development, testing and

deployment.

3. List business objectives to be met

by cloud adoption

f. Agrees to meet quality bench

marks

4. Find the Right Cloud Vendor (Hire a

Cloud tech specialist)

g. Promises timely delivery

5. Make a list of requirements (Current,

h. Can ensure coordination and

Future)

regular progress updates

6. Identify Cloud Platform that meets

i. Look for a long-term partner

your needs

who will handle post-launch

product upgrades

7. Product development process

9. Launch Product/Service

1. In-house

a. If you are not familiar with

technology, this is a bad idea

2. Outsource

a. Outsource it and focus on core

business functions like

marketing and sales.

8. What to look for in your Product

Development Partner?

a. Comes through a referral/ Has

good client testimonies

A COMPLETE GUIDE TO GOOGLE CLOUD PLATFORM // 43

Conclusion

Now, we are nearing the end….

You know all about Google Cloud Platform and how it compares to Amazon Web services. You now have the tools to script a successful cloud strategy for your firm. It’s finally time to begin your cloud journey!

Wait! Don’t leave before you read this cautionary tale….

This was a time when the social gaming wave was sweeping the world. Zynga, a social gaming firm saw its user base skyrocket. The company was using AWS for its services. Both surprised and pleased with its phenomenal success, its top management decided it was time to ditch the hired accommodation. They set out on an ambi-tious plan to build their own datacenters. But in their excitement they forgot two facts: Consumer loyalty is a fickle thing.

The next big disrupt or is just around the corner While the executives at Zynga were busy changing their strategy, their customers were busy acquiring a new preference, a love for mobile gaming. The demand for Zynga’s desktop and browser-based games soon crashed. Thankfully, Zynga could abandon its plans of building datacenters and return to the safe confines of AWS.

The Cloud was after all the better place for Zynga.

A COMPLETE GUIDE TO GOOGLE CLOUD PLATFORM // 44

Annexure A

Google Cloud Platform building-block services

AWS building-block services

The fundamental Google Cloud Platform services are: The fundamental AWS products are:

Google Compute Engine and Google App Engine for virtual compute Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud for virtual compute Google Cloud Storage, which allows you to store large or unstructured data objects

Amazon Simple Storage Service and Amazon Elastic Block Store for storage Google Cloud DNS and Google Cloud Interconnect for networking basics Amazon VPC for networking

Google Cloud SQL, Google Cloud Datastore, and Google Cloud Bigtable for Amazon RDS and Amazon DynamoDB for databases

databases.

Higher-level building block services are built on these fundamental services. These Like AWS, GCP too layers a number of higher-level services on top of these can range from a platform as a service (PaaS), such as AWS Elastic Beanstalk, to fundamental ones.

more abstract services, such as Amazon Kinesis.

Application

AWS data services

AWS Application services AWS Management services Amazon EC2

AWS Elastic

Amazon VPC

Amazon S3

Amazon RDS

Beenstalk

Amazon Route 53

Amazon EBS

Amazon DynamoDB

Amazon ECS

Amazon ELB

Physical Infrastructure

Some higher level services offered by Google include: Stackdriver for monitoring cloud operations, the Cloud Deployment manager and Google’s Machine Learning Platform.

A COMPLETE GUIDE TO GOOGLE CLOUD PLATFORM // 45

Annexure A

Google Cloud Platform building-block services

AWS building-block services

The fundamental Google Cloud Platform services are: The fundamental AWS products are:

Google Compute Engine and Google App Engine for virtual compute Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud for virtual compute Google Cloud Storage, which allows you to store large or unstructured data objects

Amazon Simple Storage Service and Amazon Elastic Block Store for storage Google Cloud DNS and Google Cloud Interconnect for networking basics Amazon VPC for networking

Google Cloud SQL, Google Cloud Datastore, and Google Cloud Bigtable for Amazon RDS and Amazon DynamoDB for databases

databases.

Higher-level building block services are built on these fundamental services. These Like AWS, GCP too layers a number of higher-level services on top of these can range from a platform as a service (PaaS), such as AWS Elastic Beanstalk, to fundamental ones.

more abstract services, such as Amazon Kinesis.

Application

GCB data services

GCB Application services GCB Management services Google computer engine

Google cloud DNS

Google App Engine

Google cloud

Google cloud SGL

Google cloud

Google container Engine

storage

interconnect

Google cloud Data Store

Google cloud Bigtable

Physical Infrastructure

Some higher level services offered by Google include: Stackdriver for monitoring cloud operations, the Cloud Deployment manager and Google’s Machine Learning Platform.

A COMPLETE GUIDE TO GOOGLE CLOUD PLATFORM // 46

Mapping services of AWS to GCP

Service Category

Service

AWS

Google Cloud Platform

Compute

IaaS

Amazon Elastic

Google Compute Engine

Compute Cloud

PaaS

AWS Elastic Beanstalk

Google App Engine

Containers

Amazon Elastic

Google Container Engine

Compute Cloud

Container Service

Network

Load Balancer

Elastic Load Balancer

Google Cloud Load

Balancing

Peering

Direct Connect

Google Cloud

Interconnect

DNS

Amazon Route 53

Google Cloud DNS

Storage

Object Storage

Amazon Simple

Google Cloud Storage

Storage Service

Block Storage

Amazon Elastic Block

Google Compute Engine

Store

Persistent Disks

A COMPLETE GUIDE TO GOOGLE CLOUD PLATFORM // 47

Service Category

Service

AWS

Google Cloud Platform

Cold Storage

Amazon Glacier

Google Cloud Storage

Nearline

File Storage

Amazon Elastic File

ZFS / Avere

System

Database

RDBMS

Amazon Relational

Google Cloud SQL

Database Service

NoSQL: Key-

Amazon DynamoDB

Google Cloud Bigtable

value

NoSQL: Indexed

Amazon SimpleDB

Google Cloud Datastore

Big Data &

Batch Data

Amazon Elastic Map

Google Cloud

Analytics

Processing

Reduce

Dataproc, Google Cloud

Dataflow

Stream Data

Amazon Kinesis

Google Cloud Dataflow

Processing

Stream Data

Amazon Kinesis

Google Cloud Pub/Sub

Ingest

A COMPLETE GUIDE TO GOOGLE CLOUD PLATFORM // 48

Service Category

Service

AWS

Google Cloud Platform

Analytics

Amazon Redshift

Google BigQuery

Application

Messaging

Amazon Simple

Google Cloud Pub/Sub

Services

Notification Service

Management

Monitoring

Amazon CloudWatch

Google Cloud

Services

Monitoring

Deployment

AWS CloudFormation

Google Cloud

Deployment Manager

Note: The contents of this annexure have been sourced from Google

A COMPLETE GUIDE TO GOOGLE CLOUD PLATFORM // 49

BitMin is a global cloud advisory and technology services firm. It is primarily looking to serve clients interested in Google Cloud Platform. The company can work on fulfilling enterprise cloud needs, whatever they maybe. From handling cloud application development to Google marketplace integration of existing apps, BitMin has done it all. Some of their startup clients have trusted BitMin with bringing their ideas to life by outsourcing the entire product development to them. Enterprises ved

large and small have also availed BitMin’s in-house expertise in cloud planning and in scripting successful cloud strategies. The company has some of the best talents eser

in cloud computing space working with it and is able to leverage them to deliver world-class solutions for its clients. As a Google Cloud Partner, BitMin publishes Right R

regular blogs, newsletters and e-books to inform its audiences of the developments in the cloud computing space and also gives helpful advice on navigating any changes.

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Table of Contents

Prologue

CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 4

CHAPTER 5

CHAPTER 6

CHAPTER 7

CHAPTER 8

CHAPTER 9

CHAPTER 10

CHAPTER 11

CHAPTER 12