Hidden Google Cloud Features
Google Cloud Platform (GCP) is a cloud computing platform that offers a variety of feature-rich and versatile services to help businesses modernize their infrastructure, develop creative apps, and scale their operations. Many of GCP’s features are well-known and widely used. However, there are additional options that are not as well-known, but quite useful! In this blog post, we will go through rarely used yet highly valuable Google Cloud features to empower your projects and streamline your operations.
Cloud Deployment Manager
Using simple configuration files, Google Cloud Deployment Manager allows you to define, deploy, and manage sophisticated cloud solutions. This feature is useful in automating resource creation and management, making infrastructure as code a reality. You can also define and manage your complete application stack as code, including virtual machines, networks, and storage to make replication and version control simple.
Google Cloud Dataflow
Dataflow is a fully managed, serverless data processing service that empowers users to construct, batch, and establish data pipelines. Its capabilities extend to handling both ETL (Extract, Transform, Load) operations and real-time data processing, rendering it an adaptable resource for data engineers. Employ this functionality to perform real-time processing and analysis of streaming data from IoT devices, or to efficiently transform and load data from numerous origins into a centralized data warehouse.
Google Cloud Endpoints
Cloud Endpoints empowers you to fashion, deploy, and oversee APIs within the Google Cloud Platform (GCP) environment. It delivers authentication, monitoring, and seamless integration with various Google Cloud services, establishing itself as a fundamental resource for crafting APIs. With its innate support for authentication and analytics, you can harness this functionality to construct and launch secure, adaptable APIs tailored to your web and mobile applications.
Google Cloud Composer
Cloud Composer is a managed workflow orchestration service that allows you to create, schedule, and monitor data pipelines using Apache Airflow. This feature helps to simplify the management of complex workflows and automate repetitive tasks. Ensuring that your data pipelines are efficient and reliable, this feature is useful for automating data processing, data transformation, and ETL jobs.
Google Cloud Armor
Google Cloud Armor is a Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) and web application firewall (WAF). It offers protection to safeguard your applications and websites from online threats, such as malicious traffic, ensuring that online services are secure and available.
Cloud Scheduler
Cloud Scheduler is a service that allows you to automate and schedule recurring tasks. It integrates seamlessly with other GCP services and external HTTP/S endpoints and is great for scheduling regular backups, data synchronization, or application scaling tasks without the need for manual intervention.
Google Cloud Functions
Google Cloud Functions represents a serverless computing solution, enabling the execution of code in reaction to events. Its utility extends across a diverse spectrum of functions, encompassing tasks such as data processing and event-triggered actions. You possess the ability to initiate code execution in reaction to events like file uploads, alterations in databases, or incoming HTTP requests, all accomplished seamlessly without the requirement for server provisioning.
Bonus tip:
One of the remarkable, yet somewhat concealed, features of Google Cloud is its capability to seamlessly convert your actions within the console into equivalent REST API calls or command line commands. When you engage in nearly any task within the Google Cloud Platform console, such as creating a virtual machine, there’s a discreet option positioned near the bottom of the configuration panel (just before you hit the “Create” button). You’ll notice a small text snippet that reads: Equivalent REST or Command Line. By clicking on either “REST” or “Command Line,” you can unlock a window that presents all the settings and configurations you’ve specified within the console, transformed into a set of command line flags or a structured JSON payload for the API. You can better define complex configurations in a user-friendly manner through this console, effortlessly transitioning into automation mode.
As it continues to respond to user needs worldwide, Google Cloud Platform continues to offer innovative services and features. While the well-known services are undoubtedly valuable, exploring and leveraging hidden Google Cloud features can provide you with a competitive advantage, improved efficiency, and enhanced security.
Want to know more or work with Google Cloud? Reach out to Molnii for support! We are your cloud computing partner! What are you waiting for?
