4 ms·

Google Cloud Compute Engine goes live

56 points by jgemedina 13y ago

rurounijones 13y ago
> GCE "is a long-term strategic bet for the company," said Brian Goldfarb, Google's head of cloud platform marketing, adding that "we have an incredibly high bar for what general availability means." and > The company has established a service level agreement (SLA) where it guarantees GCE to be available 99.95% of the time Doesn't seem to match. (99.95% is a really high bar? 20 minutes per month? from Google?! ) [EDIT] Misunderstanding of the vocabulary on my part, read further down.
- rll 13y ago
  Seems they are just trying to match EC2 here, not beat them. http://aws.amazon.com/ec2-sla/ http://aws.amazon.com/ec2-sla/ says 99.95% as well.
  - rurounijones 13y ago
    Breaking news, Google admits Amazon has set an "Incredibly high bar" with regards to High Availability :p
- thezilch 13y ago
  Rackspace will only give 3 9s.
- nknighthb 13y ago
  Yes it's a high bar. This isn't electricity or a phone line. There are complex layers on top of complex layers. And they are going to come crashing down at some point. The cost of ensuring otherwise scales non-linearly. I don't want my VM to cost a substantial fraction of a Space Shuttle, thank you.
  - rurounijones 13y ago
    Condescending tone aside: They have matched Amazon - As far as I am concerned "meeting the standard set by a competitor" is not something worth gushing about for someone like Google. Maybe I still have the veneer of "Google have the best in the world" in my thinking, but Google "setting a high bar" is beating the competition, not matching it.
    - nknighthb 13y ago
      > Google "setting a high bar" is beating the competition, not matching it Good thing nobody said "setting a high bar", then. You're choosing to read the statement in strained manner that doesn't match my reading of its intended meaning at all.
      - bgoldy 13y ago
        We could get into and endless debate about SLA's, their meaning, and their value. I don't think our bar for GA and the SLA are correlated. nknighthb's interpretation is correct. The bar has to do with a wide variety of other factors including our commitment to the business, how we are focusing on customer support, view of go to market and investments there, technical aspects like performance consistency, data throughput, peering, private backbones, encryption at rest, hardware, and so many other layers. We could have just said "GA" in May at IO when we also had an SLA of 99.95% but the SLA isn't even close to enough. It's just a factor and definitely not the most important one. Hope this helps clarify :) -Brian
        rurounijones 13y ago
        Hang on, I think I have just realised a mistake on my part. In your quote on the site when you said "General Availabilty" you were referring to the releあse. I mis-understood, I thought you were referring to "General Availability" as a synonym for uptime (Probably translated to "High Availability" in my head), not in the "released to General Availability" sense. My apologies to all.
    - 13y ago
jgemedina 13y ago
Same %, still amazon might beat GCE when it comes to features. http://www.networkworld.com/news/2013/120313-google-compute-engine-amazon-web-services-276537.html?source=nwwsotd http://www.networkworld.com/news/2013/120313-google-compute-...
mik3y 13y ago
So now might be as good a time as any to ask: any happy GCE-using EC2 refugees that have tools/tips to share after making the jump? I saw someone tried to add GCE support to boto a while back [1], but after some discussion it seems there was a decision not to support it [2]. (I don't know enough about the platform differences to say whether it make sense..) [1] https://github.com/boto/boto/pull/1159 https://github.com/boto/boto/pull/1159 [2] https://groups.google.com/d/msg/boto-dev/fNM7AFM1Ors/x-nf_MSjAKkJ https://groups.google.com/d/msg/boto-dev/fNM7AFM1Ors/x-nf_MS...
- res0nat0r 13y ago
  Mitch now works for AWS, and he probably can barely keep up with adding all of the new features that AWS releases plus the exiting boto bugs, so I'm guessing GCE support on top of that is out of scope and the project is just focused on supporting any and all AWS features?
mnml_ 13y ago
Expensive, and good luck getting client trust back after what they did with App Engine.
- tiziano88 13y ago
  What's wrong with GAE? Honest question, I was considering deploying my next project there
  - kevando 13y ago
    It's great. I use it mostly for small projects and weird prototyping ideas (http://wookietranslator.com http://wookietranslator.com). It does take a while to configure and get going (unlike Heroku) but Google has good documentation for Python.
  - ma2rten 13y ago
    Nothing, but there was a steep price increase when App Engine went "out of beta". This upset some people. Especially because there is a lock-in effect if you build on top of App Engine's proprietary APIs.
    - rbanffy 13y ago
      > there is a lock-in effect if you build on top of App Engine's proprietary APIs. No. There hasn't been for quite some time. http://www.appscale.com/ http://www.appscale.com/ provides hosting services on top of an open-source codebase you can (with some effort) deploy on your own.
  - hrvbr 13y ago
    Snapchat runs on GAE so it must not be too bad. http://blog.snapchat.com/ http://blog.snapchat.com/
  - rz2k 13y ago
    Take a look at the issues page for many of the top requests[1] as well as the included libraries for Python.[2] There are requests for python3 support, but also for pandas, scipy, etc. GCE should be more flexible since it is providing infrastructure rather than the platform. However, depending on your project getting an entire platform from Google first could save you effort. [1] http://code.google.com/p/googleappengine/issues/list?cursor=googleappengine http://code.google.com/p/googleappengine/issues/list?cursor=... [2] https://developers.google.com/appengine/docs/python/tools/libraries27 https://developers.google.com/appengine/docs/python/tools/li...
kevando 13y ago
About time! I'm not entirely sure what GCE is, but if it means Google puts more effort into appengine I'm all for it. Besides, AWS needs a valid competitor that it has no chance of buying.
anvarik 13y ago
It would be really cool if they provide a free trial account as Amazon though.
txutxu 13y ago
For those planning "wow, I can use the google datacenters, to scale to such level", first check this part: https://developers.google.com/compute/docs/resource-quotas https://developers.google.com/compute/docs/resource-quotas Just in case.
- dekhn 13y ago
  In particular, see the form at the bottom to request more resources: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1vb2MkAr9JcHrp6myQ3oTxCyBv2c7Iyc5wqIKqE3K4IE/viewform?entry.1036535597&entry.1823281902&entry.1934621431&entry.612627929&entry.666100773&entry.2004330804&entry.1287827925&entry.1005864466&entry.511996332&entry.308842821&entry.1506342651&entry.1193238839=No&entry.1270586847&entry.394661533&entry.1276962733&entry.1256670372&entry.1742484064&entry.1553073272&entry.1438649533&entry.1545046927&entry.230434627&entry.961931604 https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1vb2MkAr9JcHrp6myQ3oTxCyBv2c...
tbarbugli 13y ago
I am not going to move from EC2 with this prices and with this features and community. I hope they are going to make it more appealing soon :)

56 points by jgemedina 13y ago

> GCE "is a long-term strategic bet for the company," said Brian Goldfarb, Google's head of cloud platform marketing, adding that "we have an incredibly high bar for what general availability means." and > The company has established a service level agreement (SLA) where it guarantees GCE to be available 99.95% of the time Doesn't seem to match. (99.95% is a really high bar? 20 minutes per month? from Google?! ) [EDIT] Misunderstanding of the vocabulary on my part, read further down.

rll 13y ago
Seems they are just trying to match EC2 here, not beat them. http://aws.amazon.com/ec2-sla/ http://aws.amazon.com/ec2-sla/ says 99.95% as well.
- rurounijones 13y ago
  Breaking news, Google admits Amazon has set an "Incredibly high bar" with regards to High Availability :p
thezilch 13y ago
Rackspace will only give 3 9s.
nknighthb 13y ago
Yes it's a high bar. This isn't electricity or a phone line. There are complex layers on top of complex layers. And they are going to come crashing down at some point. The cost of ensuring otherwise scales non-linearly. I don't want my VM to cost a substantial fraction of a Space Shuttle, thank you.
- rurounijones 13y ago
  Condescending tone aside: They have matched Amazon - As far as I am concerned "meeting the standard set by a competitor" is not something worth gushing about for someone like Google. Maybe I still have the veneer of "Google have the best in the world" in my thinking, but Google "setting a high bar" is beating the competition, not matching it.
  - nknighthb 13y ago
    > Google "setting a high bar" is beating the competition, not matching it Good thing nobody said "setting a high bar", then. You're choosing to read the statement in strained manner that doesn't match my reading of its intended meaning at all.
    - bgoldy 13y ago
      We could get into and endless debate about SLA's, their meaning, and their value. I don't think our bar for GA and the SLA are correlated. nknighthb's interpretation is correct. The bar has to do with a wide variety of other factors including our commitment to the business, how we are focusing on customer support, view of go to market and investments there, technical aspects like performance consistency, data throughput, peering, private backbones, encryption at rest, hardware, and so many other layers. We could have just said "GA" in May at IO when we also had an SLA of 99.95% but the SLA isn't even close to enough. It's just a factor and definitely not the most important one. Hope this helps clarify :) -Brian
      - rurounijones 13y ago
        Hang on, I think I have just realised a mistake on my part. In your quote on the site when you said "General Availabilty" you were referring to the releあse. I mis-understood, I thought you were referring to "General Availability" as a synonym for uptime (Probably translated to "High Availability" in my head), not in the "released to General Availability" sense. My apologies to all.
  - 13y ago

jgemedina 13y ago

Same %, still amazon might beat GCE when it comes to features. http://www.networkworld.com/news/2013/120313-google-compute-engine-amazon-web-services-276537.html?source=nwwsotd http://www.networkworld.com/news/2013/120313-google-compute-...

mik3y 13y ago

So now might be as good a time as any to ask: any happy GCE-using EC2 refugees that have tools/tips to share after making the jump? I saw someone tried to add GCE support to boto a while back [1], but after some discussion it seems there was a decision not to support it [2]. (I don't know enough about the platform differences to say whether it make sense..) [1] https://github.com/boto/boto/pull/1159 https://github.com/boto/boto/pull/1159 [2] https://groups.google.com/d/msg/boto-dev/fNM7AFM1Ors/x-nf_MSjAKkJ https://groups.google.com/d/msg/boto-dev/fNM7AFM1Ors/x-nf_MS...

res0nat0r 13y ago
Mitch now works for AWS, and he probably can barely keep up with adding all of the new features that AWS releases plus the exiting boto bugs, so I'm guessing GCE support on top of that is out of scope and the project is just focused on supporting any and all AWS features?

mnml_ 13y ago

Expensive, and good luck getting client trust back after what they did with App Engine.

tiziano88 13y ago
What's wrong with GAE? Honest question, I was considering deploying my next project there
- kevando 13y ago
  It's great. I use it mostly for small projects and weird prototyping ideas (http://wookietranslator.com http://wookietranslator.com). It does take a while to configure and get going (unlike Heroku) but Google has good documentation for Python.
- ma2rten 13y ago
  Nothing, but there was a steep price increase when App Engine went "out of beta". This upset some people. Especially because there is a lock-in effect if you build on top of App Engine's proprietary APIs.
  - rbanffy 13y ago
    > there is a lock-in effect if you build on top of App Engine's proprietary APIs. No. There hasn't been for quite some time. http://www.appscale.com/ http://www.appscale.com/ provides hosting services on top of an open-source codebase you can (with some effort) deploy on your own.
- hrvbr 13y ago
  Snapchat runs on GAE so it must not be too bad. http://blog.snapchat.com/ http://blog.snapchat.com/
- rz2k 13y ago
  Take a look at the issues page for many of the top requests[1] as well as the included libraries for Python.[2] There are requests for python3 support, but also for pandas, scipy, etc. GCE should be more flexible since it is providing infrastructure rather than the platform. However, depending on your project getting an entire platform from Google first could save you effort. [1] http://code.google.com/p/googleappengine/issues/list?cursor=googleappengine http://code.google.com/p/googleappengine/issues/list?cursor=... [2] https://developers.google.com/appengine/docs/python/tools/libraries27 https://developers.google.com/appengine/docs/python/tools/li...

kevando 13y ago

About time! I'm not entirely sure what GCE is, but if it means Google puts more effort into appengine I'm all for it. Besides, AWS needs a valid competitor that it has no chance of buying.

anvarik 13y ago

It would be really cool if they provide a free trial account as Amazon though.

txutxu 13y ago

For those planning "wow, I can use the google datacenters, to scale to such level", first check this part: https://developers.google.com/compute/docs/resource-quotas https://developers.google.com/compute/docs/resource-quotas Just in case.

dekhn 13y ago
In particular, see the form at the bottom to request more resources: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1vb2MkAr9JcHrp6myQ3oTxCyBv2c7Iyc5wqIKqE3K4IE/viewform?entry.1036535597&entry.1823281902&entry.1934621431&entry.612627929&entry.666100773&entry.2004330804&entry.1287827925&entry.1005864466&entry.511996332&entry.308842821&entry.1506342651&entry.1193238839=No&entry.1270586847&entry.394661533&entry.1276962733&entry.1256670372&entry.1742484064&entry.1553073272&entry.1438649533&entry.1545046927&entry.230434627&entry.961931604 https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1vb2MkAr9JcHrp6myQ3oTxCyBv2c...

tbarbugli 13y ago

I am not going to move from EC2 with this prices and with this features and community. I hope they are going to make it more appealing soon :)