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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

View all 9 features
  • 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

YouTube

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

(172)

Attribute Ratings

Reviews

(1-10 of 10)
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Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
  • The documentation needs to be better for intermediate users - There are first steps that one can easily follow, but after that, the documentation is often spotty or not in a form where one can follow the steps and accomplish the task. Also, the documentation and the product often go out of sync, where the commands from the documentation do not work with the current version of the product.
  • Google support was great and their presence on site was very helpful in dealing with various issues.
Brendon Brown | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
The Google brand itself for some reason dissuades my technicians from calling and using the service package. For some reason, whether for the brand or experience with Google products, Google is seen as functional but not supportive. We prefer to research and find certified contractors instead of using the support system. It would be interesting to assess the drivers behind this choice.
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Google Compute Engine offer support 24/24, 7/7, 365. Easy to reach support team. Very fast response with a very good solutions. Support team is very polite and very professional. We contacted few time the support time and each time we received the best responses and solutions. Also the community team is big an cool.You can ask support to help with migration or maintenance.
Thomas Young | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
I haven't really had a great experience dealing with Google's support staff. They are nice, but don't appear to be native English speakers with years of experience doing analytics. From my experience, Google's support is similar to what large companies' customer support used to be, before they figured out that customer service actually matters.
Tristan Dobbs | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
ResellerIncentivized
Support on GCE is top-notch. Google support engineers are able to access Stackdriver dashboards and review metrics alongside the support requester so that a solution can be reached with minimal back and forth. GCE support does not typically ask for logs until they are absolutely needed and even then they are considerate with time. The support process is collaborative.
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Google Compute Engine provides the best tools to control your virtual server in the cloud. The support team is very receptive. Easy to contact and very fast response. The support team offered very good solutions and very efficient. The best support that we ever contacted. We recommend Google Compute Engine.
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