What is Google Cloud Platform (GCP)?

Google Cloud, often shortened to GCP for Google Cloud Platform, is the cloud computing platform run by Google. It rents out computing power, storage and other IT services from Google’s data centres over the internet, so a business can run servers and software without buying or housing the equipment.

Google Cloud is a separate product from Google Workspace, the email and documents service many businesses already pay for. The two are tied together by the account system: each organisation in Google Cloud belongs to one Google Workspace or Cloud Identity account, and staff sign in with their Google sign-in.

The main kinds of service

Google sorts its products into technology areas. Most businesses only ever meet a few of them.

• Compute is virtual servers that run your software. The product is called Compute Engine.
• Storage is space for files, backups and archives. The product is called Cloud Storage.
• Databases such as Cloud SQL, and data analysis tools such as BigQuery.
• Networking and security covers private networks and the controls that decide who may sign in and what they may touch.

Everything you create sits inside a project. Google describes a project as the organising entity for what you are building, and each project is linked to one billing account.

Where the data lives in Australia

Google Cloud groups its data centres into regions. A region is an independent geographic area, and each one is divided into zones.

There are two regions in Australia: Sydney, which Google labels australia-southeast1, and Melbourne, labelled australia-southeast2. You choose the region each time you create something. Some resources are tied to a single zone. A disk, for example, can only be attached to a server in the same zone.

How it is charged

Google describes its pricing as pay as you go: you pay for the services you use, with no upfront fees and no termination charges. Prices differ by product and by how much is used. Google publishes a pricing calculator for estimating the cost of a job before it starts.

A business with steady needs can commit to a minimum level of use for a set term and pay a lower rate. Because the bill follows usage, a test server that nobody turned off is still being paid for. Ask whoever manages the account to set a budget with an alert, which Google provides at no charge.

Who is responsible for what

Google uses two terms: shared responsibility and shared fate. Under shared responsibility, Google always remains responsible for the underlying network and infrastructure, and the customer always remains responsible for its access policies and its data. What falls in between depends on the service. On a virtual server, far more is left to you than on a service Google runs for you.

Shared fate is Google’s name for the help it gives customers with their side, such as secure starting configurations and written guidance. It does not move the customer’s responsibilities to Google.

The Australian Signals Directorate makes the same point about every cloud provider: the risk to your data stays with you and cannot be handed to the provider. Before anything goes onto Google Cloud, find out who will patch the servers, who controls the sign-ins and where the backups are kept.