GCP in Action

Google Cloud Platform is a broad suite of deep infrastructure components and frameworks that an application developer or team can easily lose themselves in, without a clear path towards their goal: successful delivery of a product to their users. It is a powerful suite of cloud computing services, and understanding how to build scalable, reliable applications on it is a critical skill for modern developers and architects.

This book provides a working set of GCP services and complementary products to illustrate the anatomy of an application that puts GCP services to good use, providing secure, scalable, and reusable back-end services to mobile and web front ends. You will learn to identify system stress points, choose between overlapping GCP services like App Engine and Cloud Run, and implement advanced strategies for component migration and maintenance. Web client, mobile, and desktop applications are developed to illustrate accessing GCP services from client platforms.

By the end of this book, you will not only be proficient in using GCP but will also possess a solid architectural mindset. You will be prepared to design, build, and maintain enterprise-grade applications, capable of handling real-world complexities and ensuring long-term success on the Google Cloud Platform.

WHAT YOU WILL LEARN
● Coding, configuration, and deployment of GCP services.
● Monitoring and alerting features of GCP products.
● Choosing optimal GCP services from overlapping alternatives.
● Scaling and load balancing of GCP services.
● Designing robust, backend-agnostic interfaces at the cloud border.
● Architectural design for scalable, reliable systems.
● Handling high-demand scaling using message queues and load balancing.

WHO THIS BOOK IS FOR
This book is for software engineers and architects familiar with the software development lifecycle and internet concepts. It is tailored for professionals seeking to leverage Google Cloud Platform to build globally scalable products.

Section 1: Cloud Services by Responsibility
1. Responsibilities and Utility of a Cloud Platform
2. Dividing up Features of a Cloud Backed Application
3. Determining the Infrastructure to Build Features Upon
4. Choosing Between GCP Options
Section 2: Cloud Backed Application Architecture
5. Client-side Technology Choices
6. Cloud Services at the Backend Border
7. Frontends at the Client Border
Section 3: End-to-End: A Global Voting System
8. Making a Voting System Available and Reliable
9. Identifying the Stress Points of our Voting System
10. Securing All User Votes
11. Guaranteeing Data Permanence
12. Developing Voting Frontends
Section 4: Recap: Applying the Case Study
13. Replacing Components in Isolation
14. Voting System as a Reference Implementation

Raymond Blum is currently a senior staff engineer at Google DeepMind, where he works on Gemini policy compliance. Previously, he has been an engineering manager and tech lead at Google on a variety of technical infrastructure and site reliability teams. He led and advanced the data recovery and integrity teams at Google for several years and has published articles on the topic of digital data permanence and reliability for the Association of Computing Machinery and with Google.

Prior to this, he created and ran an internet services company for several years, after a career as a software developer in media and financial firms. During this time, he taught undergraduate computer science and professional skills workshops for the City University of New York.

Raymond holds a degree in computer science from the City University of New York. He contributes his time and guidance to organizations that promote and provide equal access to careers in the professional world to all.