GCP

Google Cloud Platform (GCP) is a suite of cloud computing services offered by Google, providing infrastructure, platform and serverless computing environments for deploying and scaling applications, data storage, machine learning and analytics. GCP runs on the same infrastructure that powers Google’s own products like Search, YouTube and Gmail.

Key Components of GCP

1. Compute Services

• Compute Engine: Scalable virtual machines (VMs) in the cloud.

• Kubernetes Engine (GKE): Managed Kubernetes service for containerized apps.

• App Engine: Fully managed serverless platform for apps and microservices.

• Cloud Functions: Event driven serverless functions (FaaS).

2. Storage & Databases

• Cloud Storage: Scalable object storage (like AWS S3).

• Cloud SQL: Managed relational databases (MySQL, PostgreSQL, SQL Server).

• Cloud Spanner: Globally distributed, strongly consistent relational DB.

• Firestore & Bigtable: NoSQL databases for real time and large scale apps.

3. Networking

• Virtual Private Cloud (VPC): Isolated, secure cloud networking.

• Cloud Load Balancing: Distributes traffic across instances.

• Cloud CDN: Content delivery network for fast content distribution.

4. Big Data & Analytics

• BigQuery: Serverless, highly scalable data warehouse with SQL support.

• Pub/Sub: Real time messaging and event ingestion.

• Dataflow: Stream and batch data processing (Apache Beam).

• Dataproc: Managed Hadoop and Spark clusters.

5. AI & Machine Learning

• Vertex AI: Unified ML platform for model training & deployment.

• TensorFlow on GCP: Optimized for large scale ML workloads.

• Vision, NLP, Speech to Text APIs: Pre trained AI models.

6. Security & Identity

• Cloud IAM: Identity and access management.

• Security Command Center: Threat detection and monitoring.

• Cloud KMS: Key management for encryption.

7. Management Tools

• Cloud Monitoring & Logging: Observability and diagnostics.

• Cloud Deployment Manager: Infrastructure as Code (IaC).

Advantages of GCP 

• Global Infrastructure: Uses Google’s high speed fiber network.

• Strong in AI/ML & Data Analytics: Leading in BigQuery and TensorFlow.

• Cost-Effective: Sustained use discounts and flexible pricing.

• Hybrid & Multi Cloud Support: Anthos for managing workloads across clouds.