Google Cloud is a suite of cloud computing services offered by Google that provides a series of modular cloud services including computing, data storage, data analytics, and machine learning, alongside a set of management tools. It runs on the same infrastructure that Google uses internally for its end-user products, such as Google Search, Gmail, and Google Docs, according to Verma et al. Registration requires a credit card or bank account details.
Google Cloud provides infrastructure as a service, platform as a service, and serverless computing environments.
In April 2008, Google announced App Engine, a platform for developing and hosting web applications in Google-managed data centers, which was the first cloud computing service from the company. The service became generally available in November 2011. Since the announcement of App Engine, Google added multiple cloud services to the platform.
Google Cloud includes Google Cloud public cloud infrastructure, as well as Google Workspace (G Suite), enterprise versions of Android and ChromeOS, and application programming interfaces (APIs) for machine learning and enterprise mapping services. Since at least 2022, Google's official materials have stated that "Google Cloud" is the new name for "Google Cloud Platform," which may cause naming confusion.
Contents
Products
Google lists over 100 products under the Google Cloud brand. Some of the key services are listed below.
Compute
App Engine – Platform as a Service to deploy applications developed with Java, PHP, Node.js, Python, C#, .Net, Ruby and Go programming languages
Compute Engine – Infrastructure as a Service to run Microsoft Windows and Linux virtual machines.
Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE) or GKE on-prem offered as part of Anthos platform – Containers as a Service based on Kubernetes
Cloud Functions – Functions as a Service to run event-driven code written in Node.js, Java, Python, or Go
Cloud Run – Compute execution environment based on Knative Offered as Cloud Run (fully managed) or as Cloud Run for Anthos. It currently supports GCP, AWS and VMware management.
Storage and databases
Cloud Storage – Object storage with integrated edge caching to store unstructured data
Cloud SQL – Database as a Service based on MySQL, PostgreSQL and Microsoft SQL Server
Cloud Bigtable – Managed NoSQL database service
Cloud Spanner – Horizontally scalable, strongly consistent, relational database service
Cloud Datastore – NoSQL database for web and mobile applications
Persistent Disk – Block storage for Compute Engine virtual machines
Cloud Memorystore – Managed in-memory data store based on Redis and Memcached
Local SSD – High-performance, transient, local block storage
Filestore – High-performance file storage for Google Cloud users
AlloyDB – Fully managed PostgreSQL database service
Networking
VPC – Virtual Private Cloud for managing the software defined network of cloud resources
Cloud Load Balancing – Software-defined, managed service for load balancing the traffic
Cloud Armor – Web application firewall to protect workloads from DDoS attacks
Cloud CDN – Content Delivery Network based on Google's globally distributed edge points of presence
Cloud Interconnect – Service to connect a data center with Google Cloud
Cloud DNS – Managed, authoritative DNS hosting service running on the same infrastructure as Google
Network Service Tiers – Option to choose Premium vs Standard network tier for higher-performing network
Big data
BigQuery – Scalable, managed enterprise data warehouse for analytics
Cloud Dataflow – Managed service based on Apache Beam for stream and batch data processing
Cloud Data Fusion – A managed ETL service based on the Open Source Cask Data Application Platform
Dataproc – Big data platform for running Apache Hadoop and Apache Spark jobs
Cloud Composer – Managed workflow orchestration service built on Apache Airflow
Cloud Datalab – Tool for data exploration, analysis, visualization and machine learning. It is a fully managed Jupyter Notebook service.
Cloud Dataprep – Data service based on Trifacta to visually explore, clean, and prepare data for analysis
Cloud Pub/Sub – Scalable event ingestion service based on message queues
Looker Studio – Business intelligence tool to visualize data through dashboards and reports
Looker – Business intelligence platform
Cloud AI
Cloud AutoML – Service to train and deploy custom machine learning models. As of September 2018, the service is in Beta.
Cloud TPU – Accelerators used by Google to train machine learning models
Cloud Machine Learning Engine – Managed service for training and building machine learning models based on mainstream frameworks
Cloud Talent Solution (formerly Cloud Job Discovery) – Service based on Google's search and machine learning capabilities for the recruiting ecosystem
Dialogflow Enterprise – Development environment based on Google's machine learning for building conversational interfaces
Cloud Natural Language – Text analysis service based on Google Deep Learning models
Cloud Speech-to-Text – Speech to text conversion service based on machine learning
Cloud Text-to-Speech – Text to speech conversion service based on machine learning
Cloud Translation API – Service to dynamically translate between thousands of available language pairs
Cloud Vision API – Image analysis service based on machine learning
Cloud Video Intelligence – Video analysis service based on machine learning
Management tools
Operations suite (formerly Stackdriver ) – Monitoring, logging, tracing, and diagnostics for applications on Google Cloud Platform
Cloud Deployment Manager – Tool to deploy Google Cloud Platform resources defined in templates created in YAML, Python or Jinja2
Cloud Console – Web interface to manage Google Cloud Platform resources
Cloud Shell – Browser-based shell command-line access to manage Google Cloud Platform resources
Cloud Console Mobile App – Android and iOS application to manage Google Cloud Platform resources
Cloud APIs – APIs to programmatically access Google Cloud Platform resources
Identity and security
Cloud Identity – Single sign-on (SSO) service based on SAML 2.0 and OpenID
Cloud IAM – Identity & Access Management (IAM) service for defining policies based on role-based access control
Cloud Identity-Aware Proxy – Service to control access to cloud applications running on Google Cloud Platform without using a VPN
Cloud Data Loss Prevention API – Service to automatically discover, classify, and redact sensitive data
Security Key Enforcement – Two-step verification service based on a security key
Cloud Key Management Service – Cloud-hosted key management service integrated with IAM and audit logging
Cloud Resource Manager – Service to manage resources by project, folder, and organization based on the hierarchy
Cloud Security Command Center – Security and data risk platform for data and services running in Google Cloud Platform
Cloud Security Scanner – Automated vulnerability scanning service for applications deployed in App Engine
Access Transparency – Near real-time audit logs providing visibility to Google Cloud Platform administrators
VPC Service Controls – Service to manage security perimeters for sensitive data in Google Cloud Platform services
Internet of things (IoT)
Cloud IoT Core – Secure device connection and management service for Internet of Things
Edge TPU – Purpose-built ASIC designed to run inference at the edge. As of 2018, this product is in private beta.
Cloud IoT Edge – Brings AI to the edge computing layer
API platform
Maps Platform – APIs for maps, routes, and places based on Google Maps
Apigee API Platform – Lifecycle management platform to design, secure, deploy, monitor, and scale APIs
API Monetization – Tool for API providers to create revenue models, reports, payment gateways, and developer portal integrations
Developer Portal – Self-service platform for developers to publish and manage APIs
API Analytics – Service to analyze API-driven programs through monitoring, measuring, and managing APIs
Apigee Sense – Enables API security by identifying and alerting administrators to suspicious API behaviors
Cloud Endpoints – An NGINX-based proxy to deploy and manage APIs
Service Infrastructure – A set of foundational services for building Google Cloud products
Regions and zones
A region is a specific geographical location where users can deploy cloud resources. Each region is an independent geographic area that consists of zones.
A zone is a deployment area for Google Cloud Platform resources within a region. Zones should be considered a single failure domain within a region. Most regions have three zones.
As of Q1 2024, Google Cloud Platform is available in 40 regions and 121 zones. This is a list of those regions and zones:
Similarity to services by other cloud service providers
For those familiar with other notable cloud service providers, a comparison of similar services may be helpful in understanding Google Cloud Platform's offerings.
Timeline
April 2008 – Google App Engine announced in preview
May 2010 – Google Cloud Storage launched
May 2010 – Google BigQuery and Prediction API announced in preview
October 2011 – Google Cloud SQL is announced in preview
June 2012 – Google Compute Engine is launched in preview
May 2013 – Google Compute Engine is released to GA
August 2013 – Cloud Storage begins automatically encrypting each Storage object's data and metadata under the 128-bit Advanced Encryption Standard (AES-128), and each encryption key is itself encrypted with a regularly rotated set of master keys
February 2014 – Google Cloud SQL becomes GA
May 2014 – Stackdriver is acquired by Google
June 2014 – Kubernetes is announced as an open source container manager
June 2014 – Cloud Dataflow is announced in preview
October 2014 – Google acquires Firebase
November 2014 – Alpha release Google Kubernetes Engine (formerly Container Engine) is announced
January 2015 – Google Cloud Monitoring based on Stackdriver goes into Beta
March 2015 – Google Cloud Pub/Sub becomes available in Beta
Public customers
Customers announced in 2023 include Kingfisher plc, the Government of Kuwait, Deutsche Börse Group, Unity Technologies, Uber, FanCode, Daimler, and Wix.com.