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Google Compute Engine

Google Compute Engine

Overview

What is Google Compute Engine?

Google Compute Engine is an infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) product from Google Cloud. It provides virtual machines with carbon-neutral infrastructure which run on the same data centers that Google itself uses.

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Recent Reviews
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Awards

Products that are considered exceptional by their customers based on a variety of criteria win TrustRadius awards. Learn more about the types of TrustRadius awards to make the best purchase decision. More about TrustRadius Awards

Popular Features

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  • Security controls (44)
    7.0
    70%
  • Operating system support (44)
    6.9
    69%
  • Pre-defined machine images (43)
    5.6
    56%
  • Pre-configured templates (42)
    5.2
    52%

Reviewer Pros & Cons

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Pricing

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Preemptible Price - Predefined Memory

0.000892 / GB

Cloud
Hour

Three-year commitment price - Predefined Memory

$0.001907 / GB

Cloud
Hour

One-year commitment price - Predefined Memory

$0.002669 / GB

Cloud
Hour

Entry-level set up fee?

  • No setup fee
For the latest information on pricing, visithttps://cloud.google.com/compute/pricin…

Offerings

  • Free Trial
  • Free/Freemium Version
  • Premium Consulting/Integration Services
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Product Demos

Google Compute Engine Load Balancing, a quick introduction

YouTube

Computing with Google Compute Engine

YouTube

RouterOS CHR deployment in Google Compute Engine (GCE) demo

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Creating Custom Images for Google Compute Engine

YouTube

Hands on with Load Balancing on Google Compute Engine

YouTube
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Features

Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS)

IaaS provides the basic building blocks for an IT infrastructure like servers, storage, and networking, in an on-demand model over the Internet

6.6
Avg 8.1
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Product Details

What is Google Compute Engine?

Virtual machines for any workload

Online VMs on high-performance, reliable cloud infrastructure offered on preset or custom machine types for web servers, databases, or AI.


Includes one e2-micro VM instance, up to 30 GB storage, and up to 1 GB of outbound data transfers free per month.


Preset and custom configurations

Prebuilt samples called Jump Start Solutions can be used to deploy an application in minutes, such as a dynamic website, load-balanced VM, Java application, three-tier web app, or ecommerce web app.

Offers predefined machine types, sizes, and configurations for any workload, from large enterprise applications, to modern workloads (like containers) or AI/ML projects that require GPUs and TPUs.

For more flexibility, a custom machine type between 1 and 96 vCPUs with up to 8.0 GB of memory per core can be created. Also offers many block storage options, from flexible Persistent Disk to high performance and low-latency Local SSD.


Industry-leading reliability

Compute Engine boasts strong single instance compute availability SLA: 99.95% availability for memory-optimized VMs and 99.9% for all other VM families. Offers live migration to maintain workload continuity during planned and unplanned events. When a VM goes down, Compute Engine performs a live migration to another host in the same zone.


Automations and recommendations for resource efficiency

VMs can be added automatically to handle peak load and replace underperforming instances with managed instance groups.

Resources can be manually adjusted using historical data with rightsizing recommendations, or capacity for planned demand spikes can be guaranteed with future reservations. All of Google's latest compute instances (C3, A3, H3) run on Titanium, a system of purpose-built microcontrollers and tiered scale-out offloads to improve infrastructure performance, life cycle management, and security.


Pricing and discounting

Google offers detailed pricing guidance for any VM type or configuration, and a pricing calculator to get a personalized estimate.

To save on batch jobs and fault-tolerant workloads, Spot VMs are offered to reduce costs. Automatic discounts for sustained use are offered, or up to 70% off when signing up for committed use discounts.


Security controls and configurations

Encrypts data-in-use and while it’s being processed with Confidential VMs.

Defends against rootkits and bootkits with Shielded VMs.

Meets compliance standards for data residency, sovereignty, access, and encryption with Assured Workloads.


Google Compute Engine Features

Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) Features

  • Supported: Dynamic scaling
  • Supported: Elastic load balancing
  • Supported: Pre-configured templates
  • Supported: Pre-defined machine images
  • Supported: Operating system support
  • Supported: Security controls

Google Compute Engine Screenshots

Screenshot of How to choose the right VM
With thousands of applications, each with different requirements, which VM is right for you?Screenshot of documentation, guides, and reference architectures
Migration Center is Google Cloud's unified migration platform with features like cloud spend estimation, asset discovery, and a variety of tooling for different migration scenarios.

Google Compute Engine Videos

Compute Engine in 2 minutes
What is Compute Engine?

Google Compute Engine Technical Details

Deployment TypesSoftware as a Service (SaaS), Cloud, or Web-Based
Operating SystemsUnspecified
Mobile ApplicationNo

Frequently Asked Questions

Google Compute Engine is an infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) product from Google Cloud. It provides virtual machines with carbon-neutral infrastructure which run on the same data centers that Google itself uses.

Google Compute Engine starts at $0.

Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, and Amazon S3 (Simple Storage Service) are common alternatives for Google Compute Engine.

Reviewers rate Dynamic scaling highest, with a score of 8.2.

The most common users of Google Compute Engine are from Small Businesses (1-50 employees).
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Comparisons

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Reviews and Ratings

(171)

Attribute Ratings

Reviews

(1-25 of 44)
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Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
In our organization, we use Google Compute Engine (GCE) as central component of our cloud infrastructure. It provides us with scalable and flexible platform to sustain our virtual machines, which our applications run on, as well as storage and analytics capabilities. This tool helps us to address some business challenges like allows us easily to scale our resources up or down based on demand, ensuring that our applications remain permanent and available. Google Compute Engine greatly assists us in expanding or decreasing resources without worrying about sustaining it by ourselves. This has helped keeping our software running without interruption and with the highest performance.
  • Scalability. Allows us to scale our resources up or down based on demand.
  • Cost efficiency. Offers a pay-as-you-go pricing model.
  • Flexibility. Provides a wide range of VM configurations and customization options.
  • Top-notch security features. Helps to protect our data and applications.
  • Unparalleled customer support.
  • Although the cost is effective, for some small business enterprise this might be a big issue because the cost can be a bit higher.
  • Implementation and configuration may take time especially for the non-technical users.
One thing I really love about Google Compute Engine is the inbuilt security features such as virtual private clouds (VPCS), firewalls and encryption, which helps us by protecting our data and applications from unauthorised access and cyber threats. Also the cost efficiency as this tool offers pay-as-you-go pricing model, which allows us to pay for the resources we use makes it very unique and highly recommended cloud engine platform. Google Compute Engine is not well suited for the non-technical users because it might be difficult navigate through all the features as they're more technical.
Manan Soni | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Google Compute provides solutions to build dynamic websites and apps for clients without consuming much time. The tool has many features to build a customized apps according to our clients needs. It works on many programming languages and gives us option to build an app based on clients primary requirements.
  • Multiple Web Apps Options
  • Prebuilt Samples
  • Customization
  • Documentation For First Time Users
  • More Implementation Would be Handy
Google Compute Engine is so easy to implement and run. It doesn't require much knowledge to build an app since they provide multiple options to choose from with their prebuilt sample list. We can easily make customization on any website app we built for our client according to their needs and make changes if required.
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Google Compute Engine (GCE) is the Infrastructure as a Service platform that we use for running workloads for different product/project teams. With GCE we can create custom VMs for different OS like Windows and different flavours of Linux. These VMs can support small/highly optimized configuration. GCE also provides us with ability to create high performance cloud storage spaces.
  • Runs various operating systems. It also does the patch management of those OS
  • Virtual Manager allows management of OS
  • Provides high performance block storage
  • Provides global load balancing
  • Subnetworks are not supported
  • Support is quite expensive
  • The user interface can be complex for a first time user
Google Compute Engine (GCE) is well suited adding cloud storage. GCE provides excellent block storage capabilities and is well suited for adding addition storage to the application. The applications can be globally load balanced across different regions thus maintaining high availability and response times. It supports VMs of different operating systems thus enabling correct infrastructural choices. GCE UI is not very user friendly can can be improved. Also the networking setup is not very intuitive.
Score 6 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Compute engine is an offering of GCP, it provides scalable and flexible virtual machine resources for organisations. Business Problem it addresses: Cost-Effectiveness Scalability Performance.

Google Compute Engine provides a high level of customization, flexibility, & scalability in contrast to this, storage is also a major role that it plays. Performance and Security are the Real Factors to go for the GCP Compute Engine




  • Web and Application Hosting
  • High Performance Computing
  • Security, One can rely on Security related things if we are preferring Compute Engine.
  • Ease of Use
  • Pricing
  • Configuring Network & Setting up of VPC and all can be Improved.
I will recommend the Compute Engine if we are concerned of Security, Flexibility and Scalabilty but, It can be improved a bit more in terms of Ease of Usage as compared to AWS EC2 or Azure VM.

Manthan Dhola | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Google Compute Engine (GCE) to host and manage our applications and services in a scalable, reliable, and cost-effective manner. GCE helps us address business challenges related to scalability, reliability, performance, security, and cost-effectiveness. Our use case for GCE includes hosting web applications, running batch processing jobs, supporting machine learning tasks, and more, contributing to our organization's agility and innovation in the cloud.
  • Scalability and Flexibility - during peak hours or sudden spikes in traffic to our website, GCE automatically provisions additional virtual machine instances to handle the increased load.
  • Global Network Infrastructure - we can deploy multi-region architectures with ease, distributing workloads across multiple regions for improved redundancy and performance.
  • Advanced Security Features - encryption at rest and in transit, identity and access management (IAM) controls, network firewalls, and distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) protection
  • Costing - more visibility over how costing is calculated
  • More pre-configured templates like AWS has cloudformation
  • Advanced Monitoring Tools are needed
Suited -Batch Processing and Data Analytics, Web Application Hosting, Containerized Workloads, high performance computing
Unsuited - low traffic websites, static websites, legacy applications, small scale web apps
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
We use Google Compute Engine to host websites and APIs for small businesses. It lets us adjust resources based on how much traffic our clients get, making sure their sites and apps run smoothly without them needing to deal with server management. We pick different types of virtual machines depending on what each client needs, e.g a simple blog or an online store.
  • Easy to scale
  • Transparant costs
  • Wide range of services
  • Feature parity with AWS
  • Improved security tools
Hosting dynamic websites where traffic fluctuates - easy scaling. Running compute-heavy backend processes, like data analysis, to benefit from customizable VM sizes. Creating dev and testing environments quickly. Can be overkill for some solutions.
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use Google Compute Engine instances as our main servers to host our services and applications that are externally or internally used across the whole company. They are easy to use, configure, replicate, update, secure the machines, etc.

Currently, we face no problems with this service and everything is working more than fine.
  • Running services and applications
  • Secure access
  • Easy replication and backups
  • It is totally easy to use
  • Would be nice if prices drop a little bit
Google Compute Engine instances are an easy way to quickly run your applications with good performance, security, and functionality.

With Google Compute Engine instances, you don't need to worry much about machine maintenance and upgrades, and instance monitoring is easy and clear since Google provides cool dashboards to check machine status and notify you about required updates or changes.
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use it for cross platform software testing and its performance, earlier we were using VM Ware for the same but because Google Compute Engine grants you with more features to increase/decrease the core capabilities of the OS involved for the application testing, we are able to do regression testings more efficiently.

It helped us in identifying the key lacking areas/bugs during the initials phases of a product development.
  • Networking via VPC (Virtual Private Cloud)
  • Big Data Analysis/IoT
  • Storage/Databases for Data Transfer
  • Machine Learning for cloud based translations
  • Third party integrations are very tricky, UI can be improved
  • Artificial Intelligence is an area that can be clubbed together with Machine Learning for better result and future customisation
  • Networking tools can be simplified for better structuring
I would still recommend Google Compute Engine for application build and testing but not for building SaaS. As it'd be more tricky to integrate any third party apps, as Google already provides most of the services but sometime our clients request for such customisations, which is more suited per their internal alignments.

Machine Learning is a tool which is more efficient than any other provider and has wide range of languages for processing.
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
A scalable and flexible setup to quickly get our apps up and running without dropping tons of cash upfront, paying only for what we actually use with that pay-as-you-go thing and resources automatically scaling to match demand. High availability comes baked in through load balancing across Google's global infrastructure, with security features and custom VM configs letting us tailor things to our app's needs. With growth, it is possible to integrate with Google's full suite of cloud services like analytics, machine learning, serverless, etc. - to keep adding on capabilities while still focusing on building cool stuff instead of dealing with infrastructure headaches. Comparable to AWS EC2.
  • Scaling - whether it's traffic spikes or just steady growth, Google Compute Engine's auto-scaling makes sure we've got the compute power we need without any manual juggling acts
  • Load balancing - Keeping things smooth with that load balancing across multiple VMs, so our users don't have to deal with slow load times or downtime even when things get crazy busy
  • Customizability - Mix and match configs for CPU, RAM, storage and whatnot to suit our specific app needs
  • The pricing model can get a bit convoluted at times
  • While the integration with other Google Cloud services is pretty slick, linking up Google Compute Engine with services outside of Google's ecosystem isn't always smooth sailing
  • The learning curve for more advanced Google Compute Engine features can be pretty steep at times
If your startup has a web app or SaaS offering that needs to scale quickly based on user demand, Google Compute Engine's auto-scaling capabilities make it a great fit. You can easily spin up more VMs during traffic spikes without overprovisioning resources. For data-intensive workloads like big data processing or training machine learning models, Google Compute Engine's flexible compute instances with GPU support can provide cost-effective scalability. If you have a short-term project or MVP with minimal scaling needs, the overhead of setting up Google Compute Engine may not be worth it.
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
In our company, we primarily use Google Compute Engine to create VM instances that would power our website our testing environment and as a CI/CD tool.
The main purpose that help us decided to use Google Compute Engine was the cost and the ability to easily scale our instances to our needs.
  • Cost-effective
  • Scaling
  • Good-looking UI Dashboard
  • Documentation
  • Networking Configuration
Compute Engine is, in my opinion, very well advised if a scalable environment is needed.
Especially for those use cases where incoming traffic might change a lot in a time period.
Is it less appropriate instead if no high traffic is expected.
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use Google Compute Engine to run jenkins. This jenkins jobs do various tasks.
- Building products
- Running integration test
- Running accreditations tests
Before every release we set up a production grade deployment using Google Compute Engine and do performance test.
  • Running jenkins jobs
  • Running performance tests
  • Simulate a production environment before each release
  • GCE is only available only in three regions, They can add more regions.
  • Google can provide pricing model like AWS's reserved instances and spot instances .
  • They can improve the UI a bit better, when I get started I found it hard to get familier with the UI.
GCE is cost effective when compared to other cloud provider solutions. I would recommend a colleague GCE. When I ran same performance test on aws ec2 and Google GCE i got better numbers in GCE. It could be related our product but for performance tests i prefer using GCE.
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
We use it for microservices that has burst processing demands - they require lots of processing power for very short periods of time, thus requiring powerful hardware that, for most of the time, goes on without use. We wanted a cloud solution to avoid the hardware and infrastructure inherent to that scenario.
  • Better interface than AWS
  • Service has been very reliable
  • Excellent security policy structure
  • Documentation could be improved
  • Sometimes is hard to estimate how much we are going to spend
I would say that it is very helpful for scenarios with iregular processing power requirements, as situations where the application have burst of usage, or that have demands that change during the year or between the seasons. On the other hand, applications that have a very stable load can easily become too expensive for cloud usage.
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Most development servers and build machines are migrating into Google Cloud Compute engine. This allows us to spin up/down resources on demand based on workload, product needs, etc. QA does the same for testing resources.
  • Fast
  • Great CLI
  • Great APIs
  • gcloud CLI is very broad
  • Billing detail could get more finer grained
It's Google! Always strong for devs and engineers. Cost, seemingly cheaper than Azure and AWS, yes. In practice, who knows. Their APIs and CLI are strong enough to ensure this is definitely an 8 in recommendation.
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
My company uses Google Compute Engine to clean our "dirty" EDI files from the ports, terminals, and carriers that we work with for data cleansing services. We then put the cleansed files back into our dashboards for better visibility and to show potentially actionable insights for our customers.
  • Fast return of files.
  • Cost effective.
  • Good UI.
  • The document security has been an issue.
  • Not a lot of customization ability.
  • Customer service people weren't very knowledgeable.
If you have a prospective client who is currently using MS PowerBI, document security will be a really big deal. We are in the middle of trying to find a fixed gap for one of our government prospects. If secure documents aren't an issue for them, then it is fine.
Ye Yint Moe | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
I have used Google Compute Engine for testing and deploying SAP
S/4 Hana appliance for the internal training and learning purpose in Google cloud platform environment.
  • VM Instances
  • Storage
  • Bare metal solution
  • Quota limit for Compute Engine API Persistent Disk SSD
  • Quota limit for Compute Engine API A2 CPU
  • Quota limit for Compute Engine API N2 CPU
Google Compute Engine will be suited for the scenarios with the quota limit provided as default and less appropriate for the scenarios on deployments with quota limit increase request need to raise to Google Cloud support.
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use it as compute for external services outside our normal cloud as backups
  • UI
  • Integrations
  • Billing
  • Their UI is a bit clunky
  • Overcrowding on hosts
  • Locations
it is well suited for general compute, we use it more as a back up solution. In most workloads, it seems to be handling things just as it should.
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We are using GCE to prototype new projects at scale for our customers. Unlike on premise infrastructure we can create servers at a moments notice and limited to just the timespan required. This saves us having to procure servers from our partnered procurement organisations which typically has a much longer lead time and hugely improves the overall time it takes to start a project.
  • Uptime
  • Automated backups
  • Strong security posture
  • Feature parity with other cloud providers
  • Total cost transparency
  • Free training
Works very well when you need scalability and quick infrastructure. As you start to scale it is important to evaluate other cloud services available to determine if there are greater advantages within the Google cloud platform offerings.
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Our specific department uses google cloud for its data analytics capabilities but also for its scalable and flexible virtual/compute infrastructure. We have some large jobs that we will provision ad-hoc compute to assist as needed. Google Compute Engine excels in this area and has never failed us.
  • Auto Scaling
  • Flexible Instance Sizes
  • Easy to understand pricing model
  • More inside the UI advanced capabilities would be nice
  • Customer is currently forced to learn the CLI to do advanced functions / scripting
  • Stability is just not the same as other cloud providers in our experience.
We use Google Compute Engine in a hybrid and multi-cloud solution. We find that using it for direct ad-hoc use cases meets all of our demands. We have attempted some more complex networking and multi-regional use cases but were not able to achieve satisfactory results. Google Compute Engine is extremely appropriate for anyone requiring quick, scalable, reliable infrastructure.
Manjeet Singh | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Google Compute Engine is being used across the company for all of the server needs. It lets us create VMs with a variety of customizable options. It does give us a predefined set of VMs that can be directly used based on needs. It also helps us to reduce the cost by using the right size of VMs.
  • It's very easy to spin up a VM from the console. We can say the console is very user-friendly.
  • Set of predefined VMs ready to be used for different needs.
  • Options of preemptible VMs which help reduce the considerable amount of cost.
  • Spin up takes some time and that's where containers come into the picture.
  • Setting up security for created VMs is still messy and it can be simpler.
GCE is well suited for the following scenarios. GCE is very easy to use, and we can navigate on the console easily for trying various options. Reasonable pricing for the VMs help to reduce the overall budget. Recommendations for running VMs to scale up or down. Set of predefined VM types. Preemptible instances.
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use Google Compute Engine to support almost all of our in house computer. We have a web application that has a distributed backend of various workloads, all of which run on Compute Engine. Some of these workloads are even containerized. These workloads support the whole organization and provide analysis for research and development.
  • It can run containers.
  • It is completely flexible in terms of CPU, memory, etc.
  • It's APIs are useful for spinning up machines computationally.
  • Running multiple containers on one VM.
Google Compute Engine is suitable for any scenario that fits one of the pros I listed. It is very flexible and easily configurable. In many cases, VMs need to be spun up on the fly programmatically, and without orchestration software, one can accomplish this by using one of the APIs.
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use Google Compute Engine across the organization along with other Google Cloud Platform Services. We have interconnected collections of Google Cloud Platform Services which include among these sets of services components deployed on the Google Compute Engine, which act as the backbone of multiple customer facing production deployments.<br><br>To be more precise we have one product which is a web app for monitoring and prediction of household energy consumption and household solar panel power generation. To implement this on GCP we are using numerous GCP services including Google Compute Engine but not limited only to GCE.<br><br>Additionally, we have another product which focuses on voltage optimization primarily for the purpose of conservation voltage reduction at a particular customer site (e.g. a substation controlling a factory, school, large building or facility, etc). The voltage optimization consists primarily of monitoring sensors and performing a near real-time prediction and optimization, and then providing recommended voltage levels for an OLTC controller. This particular deployment must occasionally be deployed on-site, however we also support production level cloud deployment. The cloud deployment will use Google Compute Engine to host a Docker environment, that mirrors the Docker environment that we set up on the machines for the onsite deployments. <br><br>We also use Google Compute engine in a number of prototype builds for testing the efficacy of data science and machine learning models and as a platform for quick collaboration during remote work. Though the number of such deployments are myriad, hence I will forgo the details.<br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br>
  • It is easy to use
  • It is easy to setup
  • Configuration and monitoring of the instances is straightforward and thorough
  • The configuration of ingress and egress for the nodes could be easier
  • Machine image storing, compression, etc. could be better or have more functionality
  • Transferring machine images to and from my local environment is something I have wanted on GCE and its competitors for a long time
I have recommended the platform to students, friends and family members alike. The help and documentation is very easy to follow for a beginner. Plus, GCP has built in tools which make some common tasks that non-production level cloud users need to accomplish very easy in an automated way.

Now, to address the question of recommending GCE to a colleague, ultimately the organization will have to make a decision regarding the entire cloud platform. It wouldn't make much sense, outside of a special case, to use GCE for some parts of your cloud infrastructure and a competitor on other parts.

That practical caveat aside, I believe that the GCP brings a strong suite of tools to the table overall and is good value for money at this time as well.

Developer familiarity to certain competing platforms can be a sticking point, but a colleague who is already asking for a recommendation is likely already open minded about moving to GCP.
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
For hybrid cloud solution we decided to use the separated cloud provider as a DR (pilot light model) in our project. Compute Engine was created in one Region with general purpose machine family. The project requirements were set - one of the first priorities - cloud provider independence.
  • Project base access.
  • Well tested DR scenario.
  • Competitive overall prices.
  • Less flexible machine type selection.
  • Sometimes non-intuitive interface.
  • Limited network configuration.
It is a stable service created by Google. The quality of service is good enough to create a full fledged production environment.
October 28, 2019

Great Service

Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use Google Compute Engine to host a variety of services including proxy servers, small websites, and peripheral services. Additionally, we make use of the Google Compute Engine to quickly spin up instances for testing and experimentation and then destroy them once finished without incurring a lot of costs, both money and time.
  • GCE is well suited for multi-environment testing, development, and experimentation.
  • Very cost effective.
  • If you want to do something outside of a standard image it can be a little cumbersome.
Google Compute Engine is particularly well suited for multi-environment testing, development, and experimentation with the low cost of spinning up small instances along with the speed at which it can be done. It also does well hosting small websites and proxy servers that don't see a lot of network traffic.
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Google Compute Engine (GCE) is used for most of the AI workload spanning both on-prem private cloud and public cloud. It is used for both onetime training phase for our Deep Learning workload as well as ongoing Deep Learning inference for customer facing applications.
  • East interface to scale up and down the compute capacity
  • Easy, straight forward billing and chargeback capabilities
  • Reliability / uptime is great and had no issues so far on uptime
  • Works well in multi cloud environments
  • Although not always used, there is room for adding more detailed and granular management console when things go wrong (and sometime they do)
  • Documentation can sometime be hard to find especially for using GCE for time critical, large scale deployments
  • There are also some compatibility issues when running custom libraries over GCE. Support for third party drivers and libraries can be improved.
GCE is very well suited to small to mid scale deployments. It is also run very well with AI workloads especially when using Google TenserFlow et al. It is less appropriate for extremest scale deployments that spam multiple data center (probably because of lack of document on best practices)
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Google Compute Engine is used for a variety of workloads. Its use is growing as larger parts of the organization start embracing cloud computing.
  • Internal applications.
  • Tools.
  • QA and testing environments.
  • Production deployment.
  • Experimentation with new technologies.
  • Migration from datacenter to cloud environments.
  • Training environments (they can be easily created and then deleted after the training).
  • Business processing.
  • Data processing and pipelines (in combination with various other products available in Google Compute Platform (GCP).
  • Easy and fast creation of the resource.
  • Rich ecosystem of tools and cloud technologies.
  • Ability to scale up and down, based on the needs.
  • Better documentation.
  • Up to date documentation.
  • Capabilities on par with AWS.
Google Compute Engine is well suited for:
  • All situations where one needs to allocate compute capability. Google Compute Engine offers a variety of server configuration and one should be able to find a matching configuration, except for largest servers or mainframes. This still may be the case for large relational databases in enterprises.
Google Compute Engine is less well suited for:
  • Processing confidential information if the organization does not master security in cloud environments. One cannot simply transplant an application from a private data center to the cloud and expect the same security. Security needs to be designed and implemented from the start.
  • Period workloads processing events. For that, consider Serverless/Function as a Service which is also a offering on Google Compute Platform.
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