I’ve been trying Google Cloud platform for a while and this article is about my experience with it. If you’re interested, you can get free trial for a year ($300 worth of credit).
Initially Google Cloud platform looks daunting – so many new terms, App Engine, Compute Engine, Cloud Function, Bigtable, SQL, Storage, etc, etc.
After my try of most of them, here is my interpretation using traditional terms:
- Google Compute Engine –This is a fully managed machine hosted by Google, a VPS which you have full access, including a free permanent IP. You can enable SSL, install SSL certificate, setup your own firewall to open/close ports, install any software you need, including database. You can add “disk” here, for example adding a disk to hold PostgreSQL data files.
- SQL – You can choose either MySQL or PostgreSQL. This is a database hosted by Google. If all you need is a database, you can use this, no need to use Compute Engine.
- Storage – manage your storage(bucket). Storage added here can be shared directly with others. Don’t be confused by “disk” which is to be attached to a Compute Engine instance.
- App Engine – if you don’t want to manage your machine (including disk and network), you can enable App Engine and start programming. This is for programmers but for me, I want to experiment everything so this is not an option at all.
Google Cloud Platform – Introduction