I’ve been learning Google Cloud Platform (GCP) lately, because of the work that I am doing for CS467 (Capstone) and CS493 (Cloud Applications). And I find it fascinating because it is quick and easy to leverage Google’s wealth of cloud resources, the documentation is great, and the skills you learn seem highly applicable to the working world.

The resources available are pretty mind-blowing. Of course you have your cloud resource commodities like storage, database/dbms, compute, virtual machines, etc. But there are so many more resources available. Resources that I would never be able to access on my own. For example, Google offers big data and analytics, AI and machine learning, API management, containers, IoT, and much more. I’m using a few of these resources (App Engine and Cloud SQL) for class, and it is so easy to stand up, configure, build, and deploy with these resources. And, for a personal project, I used Google’s machine learning services to build an image detection app. Just a few years ago, being able to build an app like this by someone like me would be prohibitive due to lack of knowledge and resources. But with GCP, the services are simply plug and play.

And the documentation is great. If you want to use a service, you follow a tutorial that shows you how to activate the service, walk through a small use case (for example, using App Engine to create a ‘Hello World’ web app), then you can build upon what you’ve created. To add, the tutorial embeds buttons that direct you to the specific part of the Cloud Console where you need to take an action. The tutorials are almost as dummy proof as you can make them, which saves a lot of time.

Cloud is increasing ubiquitous. Cloud services are used in organizations of all sizes. I also often come across many software engineer positions that prefer some type of cloud experience. And it wouldn’t surprise me if many software engineers have to interact with cloud services in some type of way. So, I think having early exposure, through Google Cloud Platform, will position me in an upward career trajectory.

I am quite pleased with the ease in which I’ve been exposed to cloud services, primarily due to the Google Cloud Platform. I will say that I have also tried Heroku and found it easy to use as well. I am eager to try other cloud providers (e.g., AWS), and all of the neat services they offer. Building highly scalable applications has never been more accessible.