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I guess we know Google isn’t serious about Google Cloud any longer… I feel like this product is table stakes for a cloud. Does this mark a new transition for g

I guess we know Google isn’t serious about Google Cloud any longer… I feel like this product is table stakes for a cloud. Does this mark a new transition for google leadership? Will google start to sell their unwanted businesses instead of just killing them?

bradleybuda 3y ago
Google's enterprise-grade DNS is "Google Cloud DNS" [1]. It's not going anywhere. Google Domains is a consumer-grade product, in the sense that it is lacking most of the features (access control, bulk management) that a large company needs, though it was not lacking in stability / availability. And you could easily hook Google Domains up to Google Workspace to light up email for a small business. Feels like a good fit for Squarespace - lots of overlap with their target market. [1] https://cloud.google.com/dns https://cloud.google.com/dns
- CJefferson 3y ago
  As you say, I found google domains + google workspace was enough for my needs. I am shocked they've sold to squarespace -- squarespace seems to have (from looking at their website) no interest, or experience, in just DNS hosting. Their website is all about hosting, I have my own hosting. I guess they must be planning (or already have, hidden somewhere) a similar service to google domains, but I'm certainly not risking my domains on that assumption.
  - morpheuskafka 3y ago
    Squarespace acts as a reseller for Google Workspace (for customers who start out by using their domain for hosting with them and want to add email/etc), so they already had a relationship with Google. It makes sense that they would want to sell domains to their customers, but IDK why they would want to buy all the existing domains that likely are not in the market for their hosting service.
- cobertos 3y ago
  DNS is not registrar services. Comparing Google Domains to Google Cloud DNS is like comparing apples and oranges. Though it's true you'll usually want both if you're working with domains OR DNS. _Needing_ to interface with a 3rd party for a critical part of any web app or service feels like a step backward for Google's commitment to Cloud.
  - jorams 3y ago
    There's also Google Cloud Domains. It's entirely unclear if that's also being sold off, but the sale would make a bit more sense if it's not. It's insane how bad Google is at communicating things like this.
    - anuraaga 3y ago
      I had never heard of this service but indeed, it seems to be a registrar builtin to GCP. I suppose this is not going to be killed, and presumably the reason they aren't migrating domains users to it is awkward mapping to GCP projects? It would be great to at least have a button to copy it over for people that do have a GCP project for it... Edit: it looks like there may indeed be such a button / command. Really strange they wouldn't communicate the option to keep customers on their services! https://cloud.google.com/domains/docs/import-domains https://cloud.google.com/domains/docs/import-domains
    - CydeWeys 3y ago
      Cloud Domains is just a wrapper around Google Domains. It's likely being killed off too.
- brycelarkin 3y ago
  If you look at the api for AWS Route53 domain registration, it isn’t too complex. https://docs.aws.amazon.com/Route53/latest/APIReference/API_Operations_Amazon_Route_53_Domains.html https://docs.aws.amazon.com/Route53/latest/APIReference/API_.... Definitely something Google could build out.
- lukeschlather 3y ago
  They're separate services and I thought as a Google Cloud DNS customer buying a domain with Google Domains was just common sense, this is really perplexing. I had seriously thought I should migrate my registrar to Google Domains just to keep things more consistent. Turns out Google doesn't think these products are related at all. And certainly they can be decoupled but it seems like a bizarre product decision.
saurik 3y ago
Isn't it like ops 101 to never have your DNS hosted by the same people you registered your domain with (as if you are shut out of the DNS for any reason you will need access to the registrar to quickly migrate to a different provider, while, in the other direction, full registrar access isn't actually ops critical until you need to change your DNS hosting company)?
- cobertos 3y ago
  Is it? Having 2 failure points is worse than 1, if the failure points are in series. It's better to have redundancy. You can have redundant DNS (multiple nameservers), but you can't have a redundant registrar (to my knowledge) I always chose different DNS because registrars normally suck at DNS, feature-wise.
  - technion 3y ago
    It's just a weirdly worded recommendation. A few years back, Cloudflare and Amazon did DNS but didn't sell domains or didn't sell your TLD or to your region. And in general, places that were regarded as reasonably good at selling domains didn't have anything in the way of an enterprise grade DNS service. You would go to Namecheap or Porkbun or something and get a reasonable domain they had nothing like the functionality you'd get by putting DNS somewhere better. It was well established for a long time as a fact you don't mix these roles, it's only recently that decent players started doing both.
jorams 3y ago
Google Cloud includes a service called Google Cloud Domains. They're really screwing up on communication here, because it's totally unclear if that's included in the sale.
jfoster 3y ago
Seems slightly more acceptable than killing, but one step better would be having the purchaser maintain the existing product so that users are less impacted by Google's attention deficit disorder.

bradleybuda 3y ago

Google's enterprise-grade DNS is "Google Cloud DNS" [1]. It's not going anywhere. Google Domains is a consumer-grade product, in the sense that it is lacking most of the features (access control, bulk management) that a large company needs, though it was not lacking in stability / availability. And you could easily hook Google Domains up to Google Workspace to light up email for a small business. Feels like a good fit for Squarespace - lots of overlap with their target market. [1] https://cloud.google.com/dns https://cloud.google.com/dns

CJefferson 3y ago
As you say, I found google domains + google workspace was enough for my needs. I am shocked they've sold to squarespace -- squarespace seems to have (from looking at their website) no interest, or experience, in just DNS hosting. Their website is all about hosting, I have my own hosting. I guess they must be planning (or already have, hidden somewhere) a similar service to google domains, but I'm certainly not risking my domains on that assumption.
- morpheuskafka 3y ago
  Squarespace acts as a reseller for Google Workspace (for customers who start out by using their domain for hosting with them and want to add email/etc), so they already had a relationship with Google. It makes sense that they would want to sell domains to their customers, but IDK why they would want to buy all the existing domains that likely are not in the market for their hosting service.
cobertos 3y ago
DNS is not registrar services. Comparing Google Domains to Google Cloud DNS is like comparing apples and oranges. Though it's true you'll usually want both if you're working with domains OR DNS. _Needing_ to interface with a 3rd party for a critical part of any web app or service feels like a step backward for Google's commitment to Cloud.
- jorams 3y ago
  There's also Google Cloud Domains. It's entirely unclear if that's also being sold off, but the sale would make a bit more sense if it's not. It's insane how bad Google is at communicating things like this.
  - anuraaga 3y ago
    I had never heard of this service but indeed, it seems to be a registrar builtin to GCP. I suppose this is not going to be killed, and presumably the reason they aren't migrating domains users to it is awkward mapping to GCP projects? It would be great to at least have a button to copy it over for people that do have a GCP project for it... Edit: it looks like there may indeed be such a button / command. Really strange they wouldn't communicate the option to keep customers on their services! https://cloud.google.com/domains/docs/import-domains https://cloud.google.com/domains/docs/import-domains
  - CydeWeys 3y ago
    Cloud Domains is just a wrapper around Google Domains. It's likely being killed off too.
brycelarkin 3y ago
If you look at the api for AWS Route53 domain registration, it isn’t too complex. https://docs.aws.amazon.com/Route53/latest/APIReference/API_Operations_Amazon_Route_53_Domains.html https://docs.aws.amazon.com/Route53/latest/APIReference/API_.... Definitely something Google could build out.
lukeschlather 3y ago
They're separate services and I thought as a Google Cloud DNS customer buying a domain with Google Domains was just common sense, this is really perplexing. I had seriously thought I should migrate my registrar to Google Domains just to keep things more consistent. Turns out Google doesn't think these products are related at all. And certainly they can be decoupled but it seems like a bizarre product decision.

saurik 3y ago

Isn't it like ops 101 to never have your DNS hosted by the same people you registered your domain with (as if you are shut out of the DNS for any reason you will need access to the registrar to quickly migrate to a different provider, while, in the other direction, full registrar access isn't actually ops critical until you need to change your DNS hosting company)?

cobertos 3y ago
Is it? Having 2 failure points is worse than 1, if the failure points are in series. It's better to have redundancy. You can have redundant DNS (multiple nameservers), but you can't have a redundant registrar (to my knowledge) I always chose different DNS because registrars normally suck at DNS, feature-wise.
- technion 3y ago
  It's just a weirdly worded recommendation. A few years back, Cloudflare and Amazon did DNS but didn't sell domains or didn't sell your TLD or to your region. And in general, places that were regarded as reasonably good at selling domains didn't have anything in the way of an enterprise grade DNS service. You would go to Namecheap or Porkbun or something and get a reasonable domain they had nothing like the functionality you'd get by putting DNS somewhere better. It was well established for a long time as a fact you don't mix these roles, it's only recently that decent players started doing both.

jorams 3y ago

Google Cloud includes a service called Google Cloud Domains. They're really screwing up on communication here, because it's totally unclear if that's included in the sale.

jfoster 3y ago

Seems slightly more acceptable than killing, but one step better would be having the purchaser maintain the existing product so that users are less impacted by Google's attention deficit disorder.