Google Cloud Platform (GCP)

Main article: What is IaaS

Ecosystem of services

Google Cloud Platform (GCP) Ecosystem for July 2024:

• Computing: Google Compute Engine (virtual machines), Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE), Cloud Functions.

• Storage: Google Cloud Storage, Persistent Disks, Filestore.

• Data Base: Cloud SQL, Bigtable, Firestore, Spanner.

• Сеть: VPC, Cloud CDN, Cloud Load Balancing, Cloud VPN.

• AI and machine learning: AI Platform, AutoML, TensorFlow.

• Analytics: BigQuery, Dataflow, Pub/Sub, Data Studio.

2023: Bypassing antiviruses using Google services

On May 22, 2023, information security specialists from Check Point Software Technologies released the results of an analysis of the GuLoader malware, which operates Google cloud services in the process. Read more here.

2022

The largest DDoS attack in history

On August 18, 2022, Google reported the largest distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack ever recorded by the company. I tried to give one of the company's customers using its cloud services.

The report, compiled by Google Cloud Armor senior product manager Emil Keener and technical executive Satya Konduru, details an incident that occurred on June 1, 2022, when a Google client was subjected to a series of DDoS attacks, the HTTPS peak speed of which reached 46 million requests per second.

The most powerful DDoS attack hit Google

Cloudflare announced in June 2022 that it had stopped the largest ever reported distributed denial-of-service attacks (DDoS) over HTTPS at a rate of 26 million requests per second, exceeding the then record attack of 17.2 million requests, which was then almost three times more than any previous large DDoS attack that was ever reported in open sources.

Both Cloudflare and Google have expressed concern about the development of DDoS attacks in recent years as their frequency and scale grows exponentially.

Modern, facing workloads are To the Internet constantly at risk of attacks, which can have various consequences: from reduced performance and impaired user experience for legitimate users to increased operating and hosting costs and the complete unavailability of critical workloads, explained Keener and Conduru.

According to experts, the attack began at 9:45 am Pacific time on June 1, 2022 and included more than 10 thousand requests per second. Within eight minutes, it grew to 100 thousand requests per second. According to the report, Cloud Armor's adaptive protection detected the attack and issued a "recommended rule" to block incoming traffic, which was put in place by the company's security service.

Two minutes later, the attack grew to a peak of 46 million requests per second and ended just over an hour later.

The hackers behind the attack used more than 5,000 IP addresses from 132 countries to launch the attack, with the four largest countries - Brazil, India, Russia and Indonesia - accounting for about 31% of the total attack traffic.

Google attributes the attack to the Mēris botnet, which was behind some of the biggest DDoS attacks of 2021. The botnet consists of about 250 thousand malicious ON devices infected.^[1]

Protecting virtual machines from crypto-jacking

On February 8, 2022, it became known that Google Cloud the next level appeared in the service - safety the function of detecting security threats, virtual machines scanning virtual machines in Google Cloud for availability. cryptominers Thanks to this feature, virtual machine operators do not need to install an additional one. ON

Illustration: securitylab.ru

This feature was added after the publication of a Google report last November, which reported that "86% of compromised Google Cloud installations were used to mine cryptocurrency," and in 76% of cases, attackers abused "poor security practices for third-party software users."

Google intends to maintain the trust of users of its cloud service who fear that providers are tracking their data, so the security feature presented will be optional. In addition, the service will provide encrypted memory when switching from the CPU to RAM.

The number of attacks using mining software, or the so-called crypto-jacking, has increased significantly over the past few years (the peak was in April 2021). According to 2018 reports, at least 55% of companies around the world were victims of crypto-jacking, including YouTube, whose ads were used by hackers to unauthorized use of computing power.^[2]

2021

Global failure

According to Downdetector, on November 16, 2021, Google Cloud users report malfunctioning websites of many large companies, from Home Depot to Spotify Technology.

Users also report problems on Etsy and Snap. Discord, Snapchat do not work for some users around the world. Google said it was working to fix the problem. There is no temporary solution to the problem yet.

Adeira Fox-Martina is the new head of Google Cloud

In early July 2021, Google Cloud appointed SAP and Oracle veteran Adeira Fox-Martin as head of its cloud division in Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA). Read more here.

Apple is Google Cloud's biggest client

At the end of June 2021, it became known that it Apple is the largest user of cloud services. Google The manufacturer iPhone iPad stores about 8 Ebytes of data in the cloud of the American company, which is 16 times more than (the ByteDance owner). TikTok More. here

Veeam Backup Release for Google Cloud

The company, Veeam Software an expert in the field of solutions for backup and in, data management cloud on February 3, 2021 announced the launch of the product on the market, Veeam Backup для Google Cloud thereby expanding support. public cloud environments More. here

2020

131 DB was vulnerable

In Google Cloud, 131 out of 2064 databases (bakets) are configured incorrectly, so their content is available to everyone. It is also not difficult to find them, special scanners have already been developed for this. This became known on December 9, 2020.

More than 6% of Google Cloud buckets (databases) are configured incorrectly, and their content is available to everyone, Comparitech claims after studying over 2 thousand such resources.

The company's experts found more than 6 thousand scanned documents, including passports, birth certificates and other personal data children from. India Another public base data was to Russian owned by a web developer; it contained details of access mail server to and chat logs.

The researchers also found source code for software, details of access to other resources and other highly confidential data in such bakets.

As Comparitech researcher Paul Bischoff noted, finding unprotected databases is easy. Google has naming rules for buckets in cloud resources: they must contain from 3 to 63 characters - numbers, uppercase letters, hyphens, underscores and dots. Plus, the names must start and end with a letter or number.

Comparitech used a public network scanning tool to examine the domain names of 100 top sites in the Alexa ranking in combination with the common words that are most often used to name databases - "bak," "db," "database" and "users." As a result, in 2.5 hours they managed to find 2064 bases, of which 131 were vulnerable.

Unprotected databases are detected regularly, often after leaks with consequences for millions of currency units, "says Dmitry Kiryukhin, an information security expert at SEC Consult Services. - ElasticSearch and Amazon databases are most often affected, but the incorrectly configured protection does not depend much on who developed the database or cloud server. As a rule, this is precisely the human factor[3].

At the heart of Sabre Travel AI

On October 26, 2020, Sabre Corporation, a technology and software provider for the tourism industry, announced a joint development with Google of an artificial intelligence (AI) -based technology platform.

According to the company, Sabre Travel AI will provide next-generation technological capabilities that will enrich Sabre's products for retail, distribution and service delivery. Sabre Travel AI is powered by Google Cloud's artificial intelligence and machine learning technologies, which recognize, analyze and predict consumer behavior using real-time shopping information and comprehensive industry data. Read more here.

Hiring four new directors for EMEA's cloud division

On September 18, 2020, it became known that Google hired four new directors for the cloud division in the EMEA region to support its growing customer base in this market. Read more here.

Citrix Workspace for Google Cloud Availability

On February 19, 2020, Citrix Systems announced the availability of Citrix Workspace for Google Cloud. With it, companies will be able to provide employees with access to the necessary and familiar applications of the G Suite and provide simple, comfortable and intelligent work, contributing to increased employee engagement and increased productivity. Read more here.

Google increases payments for detecting vulnerabilities in Google Cloud Platform

Google has increased^[4] a total reward for detecting vulnerabilities in the Google Cloud Platform (GCP) cloud suite. Now security researchers can earn up to $313,337 as part of the Vulnerability Reward Program^[5].

In 2018, the total amount of payments amounted to $100,000 for detecting vulnerabilities in the cloud platform, but this year the total amount was increased to $313,337 and will be divided into six places. The amount of the largest reward will be $133,337, the second and third places - $73,331, the fourth - $31,337, and for the last two offer $1,000 for each.

"As last year, researchers need to apply to be eligible for remuneration. Information about vulnerabilities in one report is not limited. Specialists can submit several applications, one for each place, "according to the Google blog.

According to Google, the company in 2019 paid researchers more than $6.5 million in reward programs for discovered vulnerabilities, and since the launch of the first program in 2010 - more than $21 million.

2019

Release of NetApp Cloud Volumes Service and Cloud Volumes ONTAP for Google Cloud

On November 25, 2019, it became known that NetApp, together with Google Cloud, announced the release of NetApp Cloud Volumes Service, NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP for Google Cloud, which will help organizations focus on innovation in any hybrid environments. Read more here.

Install BullSequana S servers in Google Cloud data centers to support Oracle database clients

On August 7, 2019, Atos announced that it was strengthening its strategic partnership with Google and upgrading two existing data centersGoogle Cloud in Frankfurt (Germany) and Aschburn (United States) to support customers using Oracle databases. The company will install high-performance BullSequana S servers at the sites, which will allow customers to efficiently process their Oracle workloads and take full advantage of the Google Cloud Platform (GCP). Read more here.

2018

The number of vacancies for Google Cloud specialists increased by 1082% in three years

In December 2018, job search portal Indeed published a study reporting rapidly growing demand for cloud computing professionals.

So, by the end of 2018 Google , the number of vacancies in which Cloud knowledge is required soared by 1082% compared to three years ago. In the case of clouds Amazon Web Services (AWS) Microsoft Azure and, growth rates were 107.15% and 165.9%, respectively.

In December 2018, job search portal Indeed published a study reporting rapidly growing demand for cloud computing professionals

Comparing 2018 and 2017, the number of jobs related to Google Cloud on the Indeed website increased by 66.74%, and AWS and Microsoft Azure began to be mentioned by 5.51% and 16.25% more often, respectively.

According to experts, the demand for programmers with experience in working with cloud services is growing rapidly. And applicants who are looking for developers of traditional software, listing the requirements for candidates, often start with "cloud experience."

Interest in IT professionals, whose track record includes good knowledge of cloud services, is not surprising, given the huge volume of this market - it will grow to $300 billion by 2021, predicted in. Gartner

According to Indeed's calculations, the demand from employers for "cloud software engineers" who deal with infrastructure, security, development or architecture increased by almost a third (31.24%) over the year.

The interest of applicants in such professions is also growing rapidly: in three years the number of relevant search queries jumped by 107.8%.

Even if people who are looking for work do not specialize in cloud computing, they are equally indicated by some specialists. For example, 8% of software developers and 6.7% of senior developers have cloud skills in their resume descriptions. Search for vacancies using queries that include AWS, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud has increased by 101% over three years^[6]

Nvidia Tesla P4 support. You can run powerful graphics and AI applications

In August 2018, Google announced support for Nvidia Tesla P4 graphics accelerators in its cloud platform, enabling the company's customers to run powerful graphics and AI applications.

Nvidia notes that the Tesla P4 is designed specifically to improve the efficiency of scalable servers used for deep learning workloads that enable smart adaptive AI services. The new GPU is built on the Nvidia Pascal architecture and has 8 GB of memory with a bandwidth of 192 Gb/s.

Nvidia Tesla P4 graphics accelerator

According to Google, the Nvidia P4 accelerators, which are under testing and have the same performance as the V100 solutions on the architecture, Volta offer "good price-performance ratio for applications running remote displays and real-time logical output machine learning."

Applications that work with more graphics operations benefit significantly more when launched in the cloud than on GPUs used in workstations, says Google Cloud Product Development Manager Ari Liberman. - We now support virtual workstations with Nvidia Grid on the P4 and P100 accelerators, allowing you to turn any virtual machine with a single GPU or more into a high-performance machine optimized for graphics acceleration. Now, artists, architects and engineers can create exciting 3D scenes for their next blockbuster movie, or create a computer photorealistic composition.

The Tesla P4 is ideal when you need to apply machine learning to visual search, dialog speech and video content processing, Google added.^[7]

The first introduction of blockchain technologies

In July 2018, Google officially entered the blockchain market. The company admits that it has lagged far behind competitors in terms of the development of such technologies.

 Blockchain technologies developed by startups Digital Asset Holdings  and BlockApps have been added to Google Cloud Platform (GCP), so users can access them as a service. In addition, later in 2018, Google integrates the Hyperledger Fabric and Ethereum blockchain platforms with GCP.

Google entered the blockchain market in July 2018

Through collaboration with blockchain projects, Google will be able to offer the financial sector and other customers a cloud platform where applications can be developed and run using blockchain technologies.

It will be possible to reduce the technical barriers to developing applications based on distributed registry technologies (DLT) by connecting our advanced DLT platform and modeling language to Google Cloud... On our own , we would not be able to reach such a wide audience from completely different industries, "said Blythe Masters , CEO of Digital Asset, which offers blockchain solutions for financial institutions.

At Digital Asset, it hopes that working with Google will help the company promote the Modeling as a Service Language (PaaS) platform. In turn, the head of the cloud financial services platform Google Leonard Law noted that the added tools will be useful in creating products not only for the financial services industry.

Many IT corporations, including Microsoft and IBM, are developing the blockchain and offer these technologies as a service (blockchain-as-a-service, BaaS). However, Google missed the opportunity to be at the forefront of the development of distributed registry technology, said co-founder Sergei Brin. speaking at the Blockchain Summit conference in July 2018.^[8]

Map of data centers and networks

In January 2018, Google presented a map of its data centers based on the cloud infrastructure of Google Cloud Platform. The Internet giant also announced the construction of new underwater cables.

According to a Google statement released on January 18, 2018 DPCs , the companies are located in 13 such regions: Mumbai (), India Taiwan (), Tokyo Japan Singapore, Sydney (), Australia Oregon (), Iowa USA (USA), Northern Virginia (USA), Southern California (USA), London (), Belgium, Britain São Paulo () and Frankfurt Brazil (). Germany

Google Cloud Platform Region Map

In the first quarter of 2018, Google mastered Holland and Montreal (Canada), and later in the same year - Los Angeles (USA), Finland and Hong Kong.

Regions are independent geographic areas that are divided into zones. The network delay in data centers in one region does not exceed 5 ms. To deploy fault-tolerant applications with quick access to them, Google recommends that customers place systems in different areas of the region to protect themselves from unexpected outages.

By January 18, 2018, Google has 44 zones and more than 100,000 miles of stretched fiber optic cable around the world. The company has deployed or is about to deploy 11 underwater cables. So, in 2019, it is planned to create cables between Chile and Los Angeles (Curie), the USA, Ireland and Denmark (Havfrue) and large communication centers in Asia (Hong Kong-Guam).

Google Network

After the Curie project, Google will be the first major non-telecommunications company to build a private intercontinental cable, the report said. More than 90% of global Internet traffic passes through underwater cables (not only Google) stretched worldwide.

Google's network and infrastructure uses many large companies, including PayPal.^[9]

2017

Price reduction up to 36%

In November 2017, Google again cheapened the use of cloud services included in the Cloud Platform suite. Competition in the cloud computing market is increasing, and providers often respond quickly to price cuts by competitors, so actions similar to Google should be expected from Microsoft and Amazon Web Services (AWS).

According to a Google statement dated November 20, 2017, the cost of rental services for computing environments in the public cloud (IaaS) as part of the Google Compute Engine service has been reduced by up to 36%.

Google slashes prices of cloud-based infrastructure rental services by 36%

For example, using a Compute Engine virtual machine with outdated Tesla graphics processorsNvidia  K80 began to cost customers 45 cents per hour, while one-hour access to more powerful systems on Nvidia Tesla P100 accelerators costs $1.46.

There is a second-by-second payment, as well as additional discounts for long-term access to the service.

According to TechCrunch, the updated pricing for Google Cloud Platform is aimed at attracting developers who want to run their machine learning workloads in the cloud. However, there are a lot of other applications (for example, physical and molecular modeling), the creators of which can benefit from access to hundreds of GPU cores, the newspaper notes.

Nvidia Tesla P100 GPU contains 3594 cores, making it one of the most powerful in the world. By November 2017, this accelerator is supported on the Google Cloud Platform in beta format.

Developers using Google Cloud Platform can connect up to four P100 processors and eight K80 for each virtual machine.

It is expected that Amazon it will announce a reduction in prices for its cloud services at its own conference AWS re: Invent 2017, which will be held in Las Vegas from November 27 to December 1 (). USA ^[10]

Developing a Hybrid Cloud Solution with Cisco

Cisco and Google on October 27, 2017 announced the start of joint development of a hybrid cloud solution, which is designed to increase the efficiency of customer investments in cloud and local environments. The goal of the company partnership is a cloud solution that allows you to deploy applications and services, manage them and ensure their security both in local environments and on the Google Cloud Platform (GCP). The solution is characterized by cloud speed and scale, as well as enterprise-class protection.

As conceived by the developers, the solution will provide a transition to cloud technologies without reference to any one vendor. Developers will be able to create applications for local or cloud execution using the same tools, execution environment and production conditions.

A joint hybrid solution between Cisco and Google Cloud will allow developers to use Kubernetes management, the GCP services directory, Cisco networking and security tools, Istio service network authentication and monitoring tools. Enterprise application developers are given secure access to cloud software interfaces (APIs), cloud application developers - access to corporate APIs and local resources.

The joint solution will be available to a certain number of customers in the first half of 2018, with overall availability planned for the same year.

In support of the partnership, the Cisco DevNet developer community offers enterprise and IoT solution developers a tool complex for working with open-source technologies, creating hybrid cloud solutions and further developing applications for IoT. To quickly create and test applications, developers are offered Cisco DevNet Sandbox technology, which provides free access to software and hardware development environments. To start working with Kubernetes and containers, developers can use Contiv Sandbox, as well as learn DevNet courses on native cloud application development and edge computing. In addition, developers using Google Cloud have access to extensive information, numerous tools and documentation from Kubernetes, an innovative container management project.

SAP HANA in the Google Cloud

On March 13, 2017, SAP and Google announced the start of a strategic partnership, the purpose of which is to provide access to SAP products on the Google Cloud Platform.

According to the company management statement, SAP HANA will become available on GCP for companies around the world. Customers will be able to launch analytical services and important applications in the cloud infrastructure. GCP will automatically prepare certified SAP HANA databases with enterprise security, high availability, scalability, and backup disaster recovery.

Infographics, (2017)

For developers and customers, it is planned to use Google Cloud Launcher Marketplace, a partner business application store. The first product available in it will be SAP HANA, express edition in the developer version. It will be presented along with a full-fledged development environment in which you can create and test an application before deploying in the cloud.

The strategic goal of the companies is to expand the capabilities of GCP through technologies developed jointly. This will help you create the necessary features to control data access, security, and risk management.

SAP Identity and Access Management (IAM) technology based on SAP Cloud Platform is integrated with Google Suite and GCP. Customers can connect the SAP service to Google Suite and GCP and give their users access to any application from any device at any time.

2014

Google reduced prices for using Cloud Platform services

Google has reduced prices for using Cloud Platform services. For example, Compute Engine virtual machines have become at least 32% cheaper, regardless of size, region and class, and using Google Cloud Storage will now cost 2.6 cents ($0.026) per 1 GB.

In addition, the company introduced managed virtual machines that will allow developers to perform any binary operations on the virtual machine and quickly include them in their application. In this case, the App Engine will automatically manage the user's virtual machines.

Compute Engine now supports the Windows Server 2008 R2 platform (in restricted functionality mode), as well as Red Hat Enterprise Linux and SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (without restrictions). And with BigQuery, you can now send interactive SQL queries for arrays of any size. The launch is carried out in a matter of seconds, and the service does not need to be configured and adjusted.

With BigQuery data streaming, developers will now be able to process 100,000 records per second per table (and updates will be performed almost instantly). This means that large information flows can be analyzed in real time.

Google has opened access to its cloud to Windows server applications

On December 8, 2014 Google , she made a number of announcements regarding supporting software a competitor Microsoft in her cloud. The innovations are aimed at attracting corporate clients, for which American corporations have been fighting for several years.^[11]

First, the Microsoft License Mobility program began to spread to the Google Cloud Platform, allowing SQL Server, SharePoint and Exchange users to move their applications from traditional infrastructure to cloud Google without paying Microsoft the cost of additional licenses. This option also applies to holders of unlimited licenses.

Users can run SQL Server, SharePoint Server, and Exchange Server on the Google Cloud Platform

In addition, Google announced the availability of Windows Server 2008 R2 Datacenter Edition to users of the Google Cloud platform as part of a beta version on the Google Compute Engine. The operating system supports up to 64 physical central processors, "hot" replacement of memory modules and chips, and also has no restrictions on the rights to use virtual images.

Google is also working on support for Windows Server 2012 and Windows Server 2012 R2 in its cloud platform, said Martin Buhr, product manager for the US corporation, without giving a timeline for implementation.

"We know that our customers run a number of key workloads in a Windows environment, and they want rapid deployment, high performance, and enhanced data center capabilities in the cloud," Bur noted.

Google called its cloud platform "the best place to run Windows-related workloads." At the same time, the company emphasizes that it is not going to promote the competing Azure product with its solutions.

According to analysts at Synergy Research Group for the second quarter of 2014, Google's share of the global cloud services market is measured at less than 5%, which falls short of Amazon, Microsoft and IBM.

Another innovation announced by Google on December 8 was the opening to Google Cloud Compute users of free access to Chrome RDP for remote control of a Windows-based computer using Microsoft Remote Desktop Protocol technology. Previously, you had to pay $10 for each license.

2013: Google Cloud Platform

Using the products included in the Google Cloud Platform, users can develop a number of solutions:

• Cloud solutions, such as mobile applications, social interaction applications, business process management, Internet site creation - using Google App Engine and Google Cloud SQL products.
• Cloud storage solutions such as high-performance backup and recovery, active archiving, global collaboration and data sharing, and primary SAN/NAS based on Google Cloud Storage infrastructure.
• Solutions for large-scale computing, such as systems for conventional and batch data processing, as well as high-performance computing, using the Google Compute Engine product.
• Big data solutions, such as interactive tools, trending tools, and business intelligence dashboards, are available from the Google BigQuery and Google Prediction API.

As technology partners, the Google Cloud Platform program includes independent developers, providers software of model solutions (SaaS software as a service), developers of platforms, tools for management and development, data analysis tools, business intelligence systems and ETL, as well as companies specializing in the field. storage systems The necessary complementary technologies provided by these companies are already integrated with the platform for cloud computing Google Cloud Platform to provide customers with powerful new solutions based on it.

As part of the agreement, which Google and its client are obliged to sign, the company guarantees uninterrupted operation of the platform with an availability ratio of 99.95%. In case of non-compliance with this value, it undertakes to reimburse part of the payment for subsequent periods of use of the platform. For example, if the actual availability ratio is less than 95%, the customer will be reimbursed 50% of the payment for the current period.

Notes