Google Cloud Platform

Comments: True story - I somehow stumbled upon a YouTube video entitled "Free Wordpress Hosting on Google Cloud Platform!" So I watched it. Within an hour, I had my own cloud platform account open, had claimed my $300 credit (useful for playing around with paid services later), had claimed a free virtual machine space, reserved a static IP, and had installed Wordpress and was busy customizing the site. All that's left for me is to register a domain name and copy in DNS info, and set up an SSL. This was just as easy to use as any "web host" interface. The only cost I will incur for the first 12 months is that of registering the domain name. After that, my VM Wordpress will cost about $6 a month to host. I haven't seen anything else that beats this yet.

Pros: I was inspired to make a switch to the Google Cloud Platform as a hosting option for my website after seeing a YouTube video explaining how easy Google had made this process. I really liked the ease of the one-button installations and configurations. I also like the fact that I got a huge credit and 12 months to use it, to try out additional features aside from the main hosting that I originally planned to test. I also like the fact that Google de facto billing procedure at the end of their free trial is to pause your service, not ding your credit card. Finally, I was impressed with the list of Always Free services that Google makes available through this service. Also, my Wordpress runs faster on this platform than I have ever seen it run besides being locally hosted. Seriously impressive. Also, think about all that time you spend trying to get your web site's info INTO GOOGLE. Well, this way, they already have it because it's in their data center!

Cons: I sometimes find it difficult to locate which segment of the main navigation in the management console I need to go to in order to accomplish certain tasks, but it's always something that can be easily looked up. There also doesn't immediately appear to be a phone option for support, which some users may expect from a web host - but this is Google. They aren't exactly a web host, they just give you a way to use their cloud computing engine to set up a web server. You can, however, pay for higher levels of support if you need them. Also, if I hadn't watched a YouTube video specifically explaining how to get the least expensive virtual machine setup, I wouldn't have known how to do it - if you're new to VM, you're going to want to either get some advice or educate yourself a little bit in advance.

Comments: I love using Google Cloud Storage for all of our company's file & data storage needs because once you have things set to automatically save to the Google Cloud there are no extra steps we need to take to ensure that all of our past estimates, proposals, contracts, billing information & any media such as photos or videos of jobs that we've completed are all saved in a format that is easily revisited by either our staff in the office or our crews who are actually out working in the field. The storage software our company utilized in the past was only accessable by the main computer in our office. Therefore the office manager had to search for and then send out any information to whoever needed it. Now with Google Cloud, our staff members can easily access any information they need which eliminates the need to pull office staff from their other tasks just to look up information. Also, with the Google Cloud Storage software, our files are all very organized within the cloud & very easily searched by even our most technology challenged crews. For the office staff the fact that our files are organized so well, running reports that used to take a full day or more of of data entry & searching through old files just to set up, are now set up and ran in a matter of pushing a few buttons & mouse clicks. The amount of time and mental anguish Google Cloud Storage saves our company far out weighs the very reasonable cost associated with the software. I would recommend it to any business.

Pros: Ease of use- our files are easily accessible by anyone in our office as well as our crews in the field. The crews are even able to access necessary files from their mobile devices.
Seamless storage- all of our necessary files from the first estimate, to the proposal all the way through the contract, billing & payment info & before & after photos are all automatically organized & stored in the Google Cloud.
Reports are able to be ran in minutes vs the hours or even days it would take with our past software to run reports that weren't as informative.

Cons: The only real con I know of with the Google Cloud Storage software is that it's not compatible with our current time keeping & time management software. However this is not really a fault of Google Cloud Storage, but our own because we have not yet updated to a newer time management software. Our IT person is currently looking into our options to update the current time keeping software that will be more compatible with our Google Cloud.

Comments: The most direct and consistent way I have been interacting with Google Cloud Platform was when I took the course "Google IT Support Professional Certificate". This course frequently makes use of GCP to explain real-life situations and I learnt a ton thanks to the doors that GCP open for you. It is possible to set up modified instances, which makes it a perfect learning platform for many different backgrounds in technology, including topics such as technical support, data analysis, data visualization, machine learning, security, etc. I have benefited tremendously from its many features and I expect to solve more complex problems in the near future with new skills under my belt. I loved how simple it was to set up instances, get them running, working with them for a while and then how they can easily be discarded or modified on the fly.

Pros: In the context of education, Google Cloud Platform (GCP) is wonderfully accessible, powerful and useful. Connecting to virtual instances is simple when deploying both Linux and Windows. The instances can be accessed through SSH and there is even a Chrome extension (Chrome RDP) that facilitates connections to Windows under any operating system in use. The platform is extremely well integrated with courses that the same company offers as part of their MOOCs. Instances are responsive and allow to really dig deep without the fear of breaking anything for real. They each get their own IP address accessible publicly so it is a breeze to launch background services and servers inside an instance and test functionality from the outside world. I am not personally familiar with all the tools available, but I know I can count on the platform to support any future development I might do with big data and machine learning. Because Google also offers open source libraries such as TensorFlow which are an integral part of the platform, I know I will not be limited with scalability issues anytime soon when relying on this service.

Cons: Like any software of comparable complexity, the hardest part is always getting started, because everything feels so overwhelming. When opening the dashboard for the first time, you can click on the menu to access an impressive long list of available products. Since there are so many aspects to learn, I would find it very useful to have a shortcut next to each item that goes directly to the most relevant documentation page on the subject. I have also been annoyed once or twice in a MOOC connected to a virtual instance on Google Cloud Platform when I was informed that the instance was ready but in reality I would still need to wait longer for all tools to be properly loaded, hence some confusion was generated from the fact that I would have to close and re-open the instance to see a new file appear or something similar. I wish the communication between GCP and the information available from a course connected to the platform could be more accurate. Knowing this little pitfall and knowing there is a very good documentation available with many tutorials does help to get pass those initial hurdles.

Comments: Google Drive has an amazing value if you are looking for a free cloud storage option. It also has good prices if you wan't more than 15gb of storage. It directly integrates with all of Google's other applications such as Google Docs and Google Sheets. It usually syncs pretty good between multiple computers (Mac or Windows). However, if you are using the new Google file stream I'd recommend only using on Windows. Dropbox may be a tad bit more user-friendly and maybe it has a little bit more connections with other apps because it was the first company to kind of offer these cloud-based. Storage Solutions. I would say that Google Drive is better than Dropbox if use Google Drive applications such as Google Docs and sheets.

Pros: -Free Account: Google Drive is one of the best value cloud storage options. If you are looking to get a free cloud storage software suite right off the bat you get 15GB of free storage. This is much higher than the competitor freemium accounts like Dropbox and others where you only get 2GB of storage for free. -Useful Suite of Tools: One of the best parts about Google Drive is that it integrates directly with other Google apps such as Google Sheets and Google Docs. These are probably the most commonly used apps within the Google suite and it fits perfectly well within your google drive workflow. Not only that if you download the desktop client for Mac or Windows you are able to download and sync all the files that are on your google drive account. This allows you to easily open the Google Sheets and Google Docs files like they were native files on your desktop system. Once you click on a google sheets or Google docs file, it will open up a browser and take you right to that file within your browser. Google Docs Add-ons: This is extremely convenient and much better workflow than any other competitor, even though Dropbox came out with their own word document editor recently. The Google Docs workflow is better than any other competitor as of yet. And beyond that, there is a huge amount of Google Docs add-ons that you can add other companies will make certain extensions that you can expand the functionality of Google Docs and Google Sheets.

Cons: Not as Mac Friendly: With Google Drive to sync to a mac desktop, you need to have the storage available. Well guess what? Apple has been making the storage smaller and smaller (SSD Drives). For example, if you have 100 gigabytes of data and files on Google Drive you will need to be able to have 100 gigabytes free space on your computer. However, if you get the Google file stream this now will allow you to save space on your drive by only downloading it when you need it (on demand). So it will show the file is there but won't take up space. This is how I envisioned computing years ago, and it's finally here!! Wait, nope its not, not for mac users. As far as I have tested on the Mac operating system is not usable. The main issue is it slows down the mac like crazy and uses up a TON of recourses for some reason. I don't know if its because there is a clash between mac finder indexing and this software, or what. I had to uninstall it because it slowed down my 2016, top of the line MacBook pro. So if you're looking into getting Google Drive I would recommend the regular backup and sync utility if you are using Mac (opt for regular google drive storage rather than the google suite for businesses, which comes with the google file stream.) It may be completely different on Windows but as far as Mac is not ready for production it completely slows down my Mac and will use up way t When the day comes that Google makes File stream more compatible with Mac OSX, it will be AMAZING.

Comments: I've just started with Google Cloud Platform, bug they've been very generous in offering free small samples, trial offerings, and at that, the technology itself is inspiring, from the literature provided, and based on the descriptions. Essentially, a developer could scale an enterprise or computing task, or app at full Google thrust, at scale of course; yet it's not at all a paltry offering; significant and invaluable [previously] development tasks of an ad hoc nature are now, very simply put: offerings of tasty tidbits of modern day tech and lifestyle to-do; the results are visible, within a dedicated focused development session; connecting with the literature of the Google Cloud Platform app and the offerings therein will engender a deeper appreciation for how far Google's surfave-level apps have come, with the advent of Cloud computing and processing power, built on Google's rich foundation in logistics to carry out these tasks for the consumer, prosumer, developer, startup, and beyond.

Pros: This software platform is much more than one single concept of software: it's the starting point for accessing all of Google's Cloud Computing services as well as the background APIs that operate at code and scripting level inside of shells and IDEs. Ostensibly, any common computer task, client, service, object, or node can be made in to a Google Cloud Platform instance, from virtual disks and machines, to process rendering, to gaining custom access to nuanced aspects of the individual Google Apps which are offered as the common App Store offering for everyone; yet as for full functionality, API access is necessary. In addition, there are very notable, special, cutting edge technologies that truly transform the concept of user interface and user experience in the context of all things Google: some of the language and visualization Cloud Platform offerings are very exciting, a heralding of a new age in computing, marketing, and IoTs to come.

Cons: It's a vast expanse of software development to wrap one's focus about. That being said, a developer would be lucky to get some hands-on, real-world context of what the Google Cloud Platform Apps and APIs are fully capable of. There's not a whole lot to dislike; Google Developers on every Google product offering constantly update their literature and sites, co make sure that the content is presented well and that users have the means to learn by doing; going forth with the flow of context in development that pops up, from moment to moment; I suppose it [could] be more fluid, but then again, I am a common consumer developer and this is a beautiful array of modern computing leverage at my fingertips, potentially. I just have to learn to use it.