Google Cloud Platform (GCP) is Google’s suite of cloud computing services that runs on the same infrastructure that Google uses internally for its end-user products. GCP offers over 300 products across compute, storage, databases, networking, AI/ML, DevOps, and security.
| Category | Service | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Compute | Compute Engine (GCE) | Virtual machines |
| Compute | Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE) | Managed Kubernetes |
| Compute | Cloud Run | Serverless containers |
| Compute | App Engine | PaaS platform |
| Storage | Cloud Storage (GCS) | Object storage |
| Storage | Persistent Disk | Block storage for VMs |
| Database | Cloud SQL | Managed relational DB |
| Database | Firestore / Bigtable | NoSQL databases |
| Database | BigQuery | Data warehouse / analytics |
| Networking | VPC | Virtual Private Cloud |
| Networking | Cloud Load Balancing | Global load balancer |
| Networking | Cloud DNS | Managed DNS |
| CI/CD | Cloud Build | Serverless CI/CD |
| CI/CD | Artifact Registry | Container/package registry |
| Monitoring | Cloud Monitoring | Metrics and alerting |
| Monitoring | Cloud Logging | Log management |
| Monitoring | Cloud Trace | Distributed tracing |
| Security | IAM | Identity and access management |
| Security | Secret Manager | Secrets storage |
| IaC | Deployment Manager | GCP-native IaC |
# macOS
brew install google-cloud-sdk
# Linux
curl https://sdk.cloud.google.com | bash
exec -l $SHELL
# Initialize and authenticate
gcloud init
gcloud auth login
# Set default project
gcloud config set project YOUR_PROJECT_ID
# Verify
gcloud version
gcloud config list
# Authentication
gcloud auth login # Authenticate with browser
gcloud auth application-default login # Set application credentials
gcloud auth list # List active accounts
# Project management
gcloud projects list # List all projects
gcloud config set project PROJECT_ID # Set active project
gcloud config get-value project # Show active project
# Compute Engine (VMs)
gcloud compute instances list # List VM instances
gcloud compute instances create my-vm \
--zone=us-central1-a \
--machine-type=e2-micro \
--image-family=debian-12 \
--image-project=debian-cloud
# GKE
gcloud container clusters list # List GKE clusters
gcloud container clusters create my-cluster \
--zone=us-central1-a \
--num-nodes=3
gcloud container clusters get-credentials my-cluster --zone=us-central1-a
# Cloud Storage
gsutil ls # List buckets
gsutil mb gs://my-bucket # Create bucket
gsutil cp file.txt gs://my-bucket/ # Upload file
gsutil cat gs://my-bucket/file.txt # Read file
# IAM
gcloud iam service-accounts list # List service accounts
gcloud projects get-iam-policy PROJECT_ID # View IAM policy
# Create an Autopilot cluster (Google manages nodes)
gcloud container clusters create-auto my-autopilot-cluster \
--region=us-central1
# Deploy an application
kubectl create deployment hello --image=us-docker.pkg.dev/google-samples/containers/gke/hello-app:1.0
kubectl expose deployment hello --type=LoadBalancer --port=80 --target-port=8080
# Get the external IP
kubectl get service hello
# Deploy a container to Cloud Run
gcloud run deploy my-service \
--image=gcr.io/cloudrun/hello \
--platform=managed \
--region=us-central1 \
--allow-unauthenticated
# List services
gcloud run services list
# cloudbuild.yaml
steps:
- name: 'gcr.io/cloud-builders/docker'
args: ['build', '-t', 'gcr.io/$PROJECT_ID/my-app', '.']
- name: 'gcr.io/cloud-builders/docker'
args: ['push', 'gcr.io/$PROJECT_ID/my-app']
- name: 'gcr.io/cloud-builders/gke-deploy'
args:
- run
- --filename=kubernetes/
- --image=gcr.io/$PROJECT_ID/my-app
- --location=us-central1-a
- --cluster=my-cluster
provider "google" {
project = var.project_id
region = "us-central1"
}
resource "google_compute_instance" "vm" {
name = "my-vm"
machine_type = "e2-micro"
zone = "us-central1-a"
boot_disk {
initialize_params {
image = "debian-cloud/debian-12"
}
}
network_interface {
network = "default"
access_config {}
}
}