Google Cloud Platform Tutorial: Learn GCP from Scratch

Welcome to the Google Cloud Platform Tutorial, where you'll learn GCP from scratch. Google Cloud Platform (GCP) is a suite of cloud computing services that can be used for a wide range of applications, including data storage, machine learning, and web application hosting.

GCP offers a variety of products and services, including Compute Engine, Cloud Storage, and Cloud SQL. These services can be used to build scalable and secure applications.

As you progress through this tutorial, you'll learn how to use GCP's services to build and deploy applications. You'll also learn about GCP's pricing and billing models, so you can make informed decisions about your cloud costs.

To get started with Google Cloud Platform, you can take advantage of the 3 month free trial that comes with $300 US dollars of free credit. This will give you a chance to experiment and run services without being charged at the end of your trial.

The free trial is a great opportunity to practice and learn by doing. You'll be notified when your trial ends, and your services will stop running unless you decide to upgrade your plan.

You can also start with a lab, which will give you hands-on experience with the Google Cloud environment and credentials. It may take a moment for everything to spin up, but once the timer starts counting down and the Start Lab button changes to a red End Lab button, you're ready to sign in to the Cloud console.

In a lab, you'll learn key skills such as connecting to computing resources hosted on Google Cloud Platform and using gcloud commands. Here's what you can expect to learn:

The lab platform and its key features are also covered in this lab. You'll learn how to access the Cloud console with specific credentials, which is essential for navigating the Google Cloud environment.

Here's a summary of what you'll learn in this lab:

This lab is designed to be easy to follow, with a clear and intuitive interface that guides you through the process.

When you're looking for a cloud provider, pricing is a major consideration. The Google Cloud Platform (GCP) pricing is based by the minute, which means extremely low pricing compared to other Cloud Providers.

One of the key benefits of using GCP is its speed. The same powerful machines that run google.com, YouTube, and gMail can be used for your application too.

GCP's features are also top-notch. Storage, Networking, and Security are all very efficient, thanks to technologies like BigQuery, fast network communication, and easy project management.

Getting started with a new platform can be overwhelming, but I hope this post gave you a good starting point on the Google Cloud Platform.

The Google Cloud Platform offers a vast array of services and tools, and it's clear that mastering them takes time and effort.

You won't be able to cover everything the GCP has to offer in just one article, but this is a good place to start.

Many of the concepts, tools, and technologies on the GCP take years to become an expert in.

It's essential to have a growth mindset when learning about the GCP, as it won't come naturally to everyone.

Google Cloud Shell provides you with command-line access to computing resources hosted on Google Cloud Platform, making it easy to manage projects and resources without installing the Google Cloud SDK and other tools on your system.

With Cloud Shell, the Cloud SDK gcloud command and other utilities are always available when you need them.

You can get started with Google Cloud Platform for free with a 3 month free trial that includes $300 US dollars of free credit.

Google Cloud Shell is a game-changer for managing your Cloud Platform Console projects and resources without installing the Google Cloud SDK and other tools on your system. It's available in the Google Cloud Platform Console.

You can access Cloud Shell and use the command line to invoke the Cloud SDK gcloud command or other tools available on the virtual machine instance. This is a big plus, as you can work on projects without worrying about software installations.

With Cloud Shell, you can store files across projects and between Cloud Shell sessions in your $HOME directory, which is private to you and cannot be accessed by other users. This is a secure way to keep your files organized.

You can get help with gcloud commands by adding -h onto the end of any invocation, or by using the --help flag. This is a great way to learn how to use the gcloud command.

Google Cloud Platform offers a 3 month free trial with $300 US dollars of free credit, perfect for getting hands-on experience.

You can use this free trial to play around with GCP, run experiments, and decide if it's the right option for you.

You won't be charged at the end of your trial, and you'll be notified when it's about to end, so you can decide whether to upgrade your plan.

To learn effectively, it's essential to try things out on your own, face problems, break things, and fix them – it's the best way to gain practical experience.

Clicking the "Start Lab" button creates a temporary Google Cloud environment, complete with all necessary services and credentials enabled, so you can get hands-on practice with the lab's material.

Roles are an essential part of managing permissions on the Google Cloud Platform. There are three types of roles: Primitive, Predefined, and Custom.

Primitive roles are the original GCP roles that apply to the entire project. They are concentric, meaning that Editor contains Viewer and Owner contains Editor.

Predefined roles provide access to specific services, such as storage.admin.

Custom roles let you create your own roles, combining the specific permissions you need.

To assign roles effectively, follow the principle of least privilege. This means giving users the minimum permissions required to perform their tasks.

Prefer predefined roles over primitive roles, as they are more specific and secure.

Here are the three types of roles:

The Navigation Menu is a convenient way to access Google Cloud's core services. It's located in the title bar of the Cloud console and appears as three lines.

To open the Navigation menu, simply click on the icon. This will reveal a dropdown list of services.

You can also access the Navigation menu by clicking on the three lines in the title bar. This will open the menu, allowing you to quickly find the tools and services you need.

To navigate the menu, click on "View all Products" and then scroll through the categories of tools and services. This will give you a comprehensive list of everything Google Cloud has to offer.

Here's a step-by-step guide to accessing the Navigation menu:

Cost Optimization is key to getting the most out of Google Cloud Platform. You can save up to 80% of your costs by using preemptible virtual machines for non-critical applications.

GCP charges you only for the time your instances are running, so make sure to stop them when not in use. Google will not charge you for stopped instances, but you might incur charges for resources like disks or reserved IPs.

You can also save money by using sustained use discounts, which can give you up to 30% off your virtual machines and Cloud SQL instances. The longer you use them, the higher the discount.

Here are some tips to help you optimize your costs:

Migrating your services to Google Cloud Platform can be a game-changer for cost optimization.

You can avoid spending a lot of money upfront for hardware, which is a huge plus.

No need to worry about upgrading your hardware and migrating your data and services every few years – a major headache avoided.

The ability to scale to adjust to demand, paying only for the resources you consume, is a huge advantage.

This means you can create proof of concepts quickly, since provisioning resources can be done very fast.

You'll also have secure and managed APIs, which is a must-have for any business.

GCP offers more than just infrastructure – you'll also have access to data analytics and machine learning services.

You can save up to 80% of your costs by using preemptible virtual machines, ideal for fault-tolerant, non-critical applications.

Google may stop your instances at any time, but you can reduce the chances of getting your VMs shut down by using many small instances and running your jobs during off-peak times.

To reduce costs, you can also use sustained use discounts, which automatically apply up to 30% discount if you use your virtual machines for a longer period.

You can also get up to 57% discount with committed use discounts, which requires committing to a certain amount of CPU and RAM resources for 1 to 3 years.

To estimate your costs, use the Price Calculator to prevent any surprises with your bills and create budget alerts.

Here are the key benefits of optimizing VMs to reduce costs:

Resource management is a crucial aspect of Google Cloud Platform (GCP). You can manage and administer your GCP resources to ensure efficient and secure use of your resources.

There are four types of resources in GCP: organization, project, folder, and resource. The organization resource represents the root node in the resource hierarchy and is the top-level entity, while projects are required to create resources and can be used to separate environments, such as production and development. Folders provide an extra level of project isolation, and resources include virtual machines, database instances, and load balancers.

The resource hierarchy follows a parent/child relationship, similar to a traditional file system, where permissions are inherited as you descend the hierarchy. This means that permissions granted at the organization level will be propagated to all folders and projects. Additionally, more permissive parent policies always overrule more restrictive child policies, making it easier to manage common aspects of your resources.

Here are the four types of resources in GCP:

Instance groups are a powerful tool in Google Cloud Platform, allowing you to treat a group of instances as a single unit. They come in two flavors: unmanaged and managed instance groups.

Unmanaged instance groups are formed by a heterogeneous group of instances that require individual configuration settings. This makes them more difficult to manage and maintain.

Managed instance groups (MIGs), on the other hand, are the preferred option when possible. All machines in a MIG look the same, making it easy to configure them, create them in multiple zones for high availability, replace them if they become unhealthy, balance traffic among them, and create new instances if traffic increases.

To create a MIG, you need to define an instance template, specifying your machine type, zone, OS image, startup, and shutdown scripts, among other things. Instance templates are immutable, meaning you can't change them once they're created.

To update a MIG, you need to create a new template and use the Managed Instance Group Updated to deploy the new version to every machine in the group. This functionality can be used to create canary tests, deploying your changes to a small fraction of your machines first.

Here are the key differences between unmanaged and managed instance groups:

Horizontal ScalingNo

By using managed instance groups, you can ensure your application can handle the load even if an entire zone fails, as recommended by Google.

Resource Management is a crucial aspect of Google Cloud Platform (GCP). You can manage and administer your Google Cloud resources, including quotas that limit the maximum number of resources you can create to prevent unexpected spikes in billing.

There are four types of resources that can be managed through Resource Manager: organization, projects, folders, and resources. The organization resource is the root node in the resource hierarchy, representing an organization like a company. Projects are required to create resources and can be used to separate projects for production and development environments.

The resource hierarchy in GCP follows a parent/child relationship, similar to a traditional file system. Permissions are inherited as you descend the hierarchy, and more permissive parent policies always overrule more restrictive child policies.

You can create super admin accounts that have access to every resource in your organization. These accounts are very powerful, so make sure you follow Google's best practices.

Here's a breakdown of the resource hierarchy:

Labels and tags are two related but distinct concepts in resource management. Labels are applied to any GCP resource.

They can be used to organize resources, but that's where their functionality ends. In contrast, network tags are applied only to VPC resources.

Network tags, on the other hand, have a more significant impact on how resources work. They can be used to apply firewall rules, for example.

Here's a summary of the differences between labels and network tags:

Storing VM data in disks is a crucial aspect of resource management. You can store your data in Persistent disks, Local SSDs, or in Cloud Storage.

Persistent disks provide durable and reliable block storage. They are networked attached, which means they're less performant than local options.

One of the benefits of Persistent disks is that you can resize, attach, or detach them from a VM even if the instance is in use. This is a huge advantage for dynamic workloads.

Here are some key benefits of Persistent disks:

Local SSDs, on the other hand, provide high-performance ephemeral storage. They're attached to a VM, but the data will be lost if the VM is killed.

You can attach up to eight 375GB local SSDs to the same instance, which is a significant amount of storage.

Snapshots are backups of your disks, and they're created incrementally to reduce space. They contain only the data that has changed since the previous backup.

Here's how it works:

It's best practice to reduce the instance's activity, stop writing data to disk, and flush buffers before taking a snapshot. This ensures you get an accurate representation of the content of the disk.

A Project ID is a unique identifier that links Google Cloud resources and APIs to your specific project.

It's a globally identifiable identifier, meaning there can be only one qwiklabs-gcp-xxx.... for each project.

A Project ID is used to organize your Google Cloud resources, making it easier to manage and access them.

Projects often contain multiple resources and services, such as virtual machines, databases, and networks.

Project IDs are a crucial part of project settings and permissions, which specify security rules and access to resources.

Networking in Google Cloud Platform is a crucial aspect of setting up and managing your resources. GCP provides a set of networking services, including Compute Engine, that help you load-balance traffic across resources, create DNS records, and connect your existing network to Google's network.

App Engine manages networking for you, and GKE uses the Kubernetes model, while Compute Engine provides a set of networking services. These services allow you to create DNS records and connect your existing network to Google's network.

You can build networks for your resources, Virtual Private Clouds (VPCs), which are software-defined networks where all traditional network concepts apply. A VPC is a way to organize resources and manage permissions, and it's used to separate network resources.

Here are some key features of VPCs:

Networking in Specialization is a great way to learn about the core infrastructure and networking options in Google Cloud Platform. This specialization gives participants a broad study of core infrastructure and networking options.

You can earn up to $90 in Qwiklabs credits by completing the specialization's completion challenge. To access the details, look below for the completion challenge.

Networking in Google Cloud Platform from Google Cloud is a great resource to learn about networking. This resource covers the core infrastructure and networking options in Google Cloud Platform.

To get started with networking in Google Cloud Platform, you'll need to understand the basics of regions, zones, and edge points of presence. Here's a quick rundown:

A Virtual Private Cloud (VPC) is a software-defined network that allows you to build networks for your resources. A VPC is designed in a way that all traffic between regions travels through a global private network, resulting in better security and performance.

Here are some key concepts to understand when working with VPCs:

Images play a crucial role in creating boot disks for your instances. There are two types of images: public images and custom images.

Public images are provided and maintained by Google, open-source communities, and third-party vendors. They are ready for use as soon as you create your project and are available to anyone.

Custom images, on the other hand, are images that you have created. They are linked to the project in which you created them, but you can share them with other projects.

You can create images from persistent disks and other images, both from the same project or shared from another project. This allows for flexibility and reusability of your images.

Images can be grouped in image families to simplify the management of different image versions. This is especially useful for tracking changes and updates to your images.

For Linux-based images, you can share them by exporting them to Cloud Storage as a tar.gz file. This provides an additional way to distribute your images.

Here's a quick summary of the two types of images:

Pub/Sub is a fully-managed message queue that lets you decouple publishers and subscribers, making it easier to manage data flow in complex systems.

This is particularly useful when you need to scale your system quickly, as Pub/Sub can handle a large volume of messages.

Pub/Sub is not a direct substitute for Kafka, but they can be used together in the same pipeline. You can even connect Kafka to Google Cloud Platform (GCP) using open-source plugins like Kafka Connect.

Pub/Sub guarantees that every message will be delivered at least once, but it doesn't guarantee that messages will be processed in order. This is where Dataflow comes in, which can process data in the correct order.

Pub/Sub supports both push and pull modes, which can be chosen based on your specific needs.

Here are the differences between push and pull modes:

Pub/Sub and Task are two popular services in Google Cloud that help you manage messages and tasks between services. In Pub/Sub, publishers and subscribers are decoupled, which means publishers know nothing about their subscribers.

This decoupling allows for a more flexible and scalable architecture, but it also means that publishers have limited control over the execution of their messages. In contrast, Cloud Tasks provides more control to the publisher, allowing them to schedule specific delivery times and configure retries.

One key difference between Pub/Sub and Task is the level of control the publisher has over the execution of their messages. Here's a summary of the main differences:

By choosing the right service for your use case, you can build more efficient and scalable systems.

Managing Apigee API Specialization requires a structured approach. The Google Cloud's Apigee API Platform Specialization is a three-course program that covers design principles, installation steps, and operational procedures.

You can install and manage the Apigee API Platform from Google Cloud. This platform is designed to help you successfully adopt the Apigee API.

The Apigee API Platform requires careful installation and management to ensure its smooth operation. The three-course specialization provides in-depth knowledge on how to achieve this.

With the Apigee API Platform, you can design, implement, and manage APIs efficiently. This platform is a valuable tool for anyone looking to adopt API technology.

To manage the Apigee API Specialization effectively, you need to understand its design principles and installation steps. The three-course program covers all these aspects in detail.

You can develop and deploy Windows applications on Google Cloud Platform, which allows you to run Microsoft Windows applications on Google Cloud Platform (GCP).

Google Cloud offers a course on how to deploy and run Windows applications on GCP, which includes lectures and hands-on labs to learn the configuration and deployment process.

Developing Windows applications on Google Cloud Platform provides flexibility and scalability for your applications, allowing you to take advantage of GCP's infrastructure and services.

Through Google Cloud's course, you can learn how to configure and run Windows applications on GCP, giving you the skills to deploy and manage your applications in the cloud.