Google Cloud Platform refers to a set of public cloud hosting solutions that Google offers. This platform therefore provides a wide range of services covering storage, computing and app development needs, which are run on the Google hardware. All enterprise IT staffs, software developers and cloud hosting administrators can access these services through the Internet or via a private network connection.

What Makes The Google Cloud Platform Different From The Rest?

• Continuous Innovations: The Key Cloud Computing Solutions Offered by GCP Include:

i. The Google Compute Engine, which refers, or an IaaS (Infrastructure as a service) offering that lets users use Virtual Machines for hosting  workloads.

ii. Google App Engine refers to a PaaS offering allowing software developers the access to Google’s scalable solutions.

iii. Google Container Engine refers to a management system for the Docker containers running within Google public clouds.

iv. Google Cloud Storage refers to a platform for storing large unstructured data.

The reason why GCP is a cut above the rest is the fact that besides these handy solutions, the platform continues to include higher level solutions like those relating to Machine Learning and Big Data. Besides, the Google Cloud Dataflow refers to a data processing solution offered by Google for analytics and for real-time projects. Google also offer Cloud Machine Learning Engine for artificial intelligence solutions; this managed service can help users build machine learning models. Google also offers Google Cloud IoT Core that is a suite of managed solutions for users to manage data obtained from IoT devices. So, the GCP platform is evolving all the time and Google has been introducing, changing or discontinuing its services according to user demands from time to time.

• Security: GCP also offers a security model that is really an end-to-end system which has been built on experience gained over a decade and a half. The model is therefore focused on ensuring that customers stay safe while using Google apps.

• Pricing: GCP ensures that you have to pay only for the computing time you use. So, the bills are made in minute-level increments; you can even get discounted prices when there are long-running workloads and you do not have to make any upfront payments. Since you can use the virtual machines for one month to avail of discounts, it is ideally suited for businesses which must stick to low budgets and for start-ups. In comparison, when you sign up for AWS, you will need to pre-pay to get Reserved Instances in order to be eligible for discounts. Azure, on the other hand, will only provide a 5% discount for a year’s pre-payment.

• Big Data: GCP offers multiple innovations like Big table, Map Reduce, next-gen breakthrough solutions and frameworks to perform cloud data warehousing, real-time data processing, advanced machine learning, stunning visual analytics and intelligent data preparation etc to change your business by giving it such useful insights. The biggest benefit is that such analytical solutions are completely server-less; so, you will not have to create and run a data analytics ecosystem.

• Networking: GCP is different from other public cloud providers because its backbone network is made up of many miles of fiber optic cables. They use advanced networking technologies and offer edge-caching services for delivering fast and scalable performance. Since GCP has one of the biggest networks in the world with cables running even under the Pacific Ocean, it is different from other cloud providers. In 2016, Google even announced launch of a faster cable system which can give access to nearly 10Tbps of a total of 60Tbps bandwidth between Japan and US. This huge physical network is what makes GCP the mother of all clouds.

• Live Migration: Another important reason why GCP is better than others is because it can perform live migration for VMs. This is a function which Azure, AWS and small cloud providers cannot provide. This implies that VMs will never experience degradations in performance even when they are being migrated live between the host machines. This is why Google engineers are better equipped to handle issues like repairing, patching or updating software without you having to worry about reboots.

• Security: GCP is also known for its state-of-the-art security arrangements. You can benefit from a security model which is built over 15 years of experience. It boasts of successful solutions like Gmail. Google currently has a 500 plus security workforce. This ensures that all data in transit is encrypted when it travels between GCP and customers. Data stored in disks is also encrypted and each encryption key gets encrypted further with routinely-changed master keys. Google also has long standing relationships with some of the best ISPs globally and this helps to enhance security for data in transit. GCP is also committed to security certifications that go through regular audits like SSAE16, PCI, HIPAA, ISO 27017 etc.

• Continuous Expansion: GCP is also committed to growing its infrastructure further; it has recently announced locations of some new Google Cloud Regions that are strategically placed.

• Redundant Backups: Google Cloud Storage can guarantee 99.99% durability and Google provides four distinct types of storage. It can store data in its redundant systems where there are automatic checksums for ensuring data integrity. Since there is multi-storage it is geo-redundant and this means that you will never lose data even if there is a disaster.

Conclusion

GCP is the collection of public clouds that are offered by Google. It has several features that are essential for the smooth functioning of the cloud. GCP allows top-notch security that is end-to-end encrypted. Moreover, the pricing of GCP is also affordable thus most users across the world can purchase it without any issue. With the GCP, you can easily create data backups without any issue and get enhanced data security.