Item: Google Compute Engine
Rating: 9
Author: Thomas Young

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Google Cloud Compute Engine is used by the organization to do automated advanced analytics for clients across the world. The software addresses two important aspects of our business: first, it runs in the background and with speed and accuracy that works well for the analyst as well as others; second, the software runs in the cloud, which makes analyzing the data generally easier.

Pros and Cons

Google Cloud Compute Engine does a good job at crunching numbers.
Google Cloud Compute Engine is great at always being available, and I have yet to find any latency.
Google Cloud Compute Engine is great for doing advanced analytics (machine learning) without needing the software on my desktop.

Google Compute Engine is in the cloud, which means that it is probably less secure than on-premise options. With that said, I have never had a problem.
Google Compute Engine seems fine at running machine learning models, but is in no way as good as competing tools that are not run in the cloud.
Google Compute Engine is less user friendly than AWS or Azure, at least that's my experience.

Return on Investment

Google Compute Engine has had a positive return on investment in that it has expanded the offerings of the business, and clients seem to like the shift towards Google services.
Google Cloud Compute Engine was a poor return on investment at first because it required a good deal of effort to figure things out.
Google Cloud Compute Engine is a positive return on investment by allowing multiple users to work on the same project in the cloud.

Usability

Google Cloud Compute Engine works well with individuals that are experienced analysts. Google appears to be targeting professional analysts rather than first-time analytics professionals or individuals that just want to play around in the cloud. Although it takes a little bit of effort to figure things out, working with Google Cloud Compute Engine is fairly straight-forward now.

Support Rating

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.

Alternatives Considered

Azure SQL Database and AWS Cloud9

Google was the third entry into the world of cloud service providers (at least from what I can tell). It looks like they took what Azure and AWS does well, and attempted to improve upon them. To me, they've done ok at this. It all seems to depend on which service you're used to using.

Other Software Used

Azure API Management, Azure Cosmos DB, Azure HDInsight, AWS Cloud9

Likelihood to Recommend

Google Cloud Compute Engine is well suited for companies doing advanced analytics, including machine learning and artificial intelligence. The software is less useful for smaller companies with only small data sets available for analysis. The software works well if you need instant access from anywhere in the world and if you are used to the Google infrastructure.

Google's Compute Engine is Good if You Like the Google Ecosystem, and Probably Even if You Don't Like Google

Overall Satisfaction with Google Compute Engine