Google Cloud Compute Engine goes live (opens in new tab)

(computerworld.com)

56 pointsjgemedina12y ago28 comments

28 comments

20 comments · 8 top-level

rurounijones12y ago· 5 in thread

> 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.

nknighthb12y 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.

rurounijones12y 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.

2 more replies

rll12y ago

Seems they are just trying to match EC2 here, not beat them. http://aws.amazon.com/ec2-sla/ says 99.95% as well.

rurounijones12y ago

Breaking news, Google admits Amazon has set an "Incredibly high bar" with regards to High Availability :p

thezilch12y ago

Rackspace will only give 3 9s.

mnml_12y ago· 5 in thread

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

tiziano8812y ago

What's wrong with GAE? Honest question, I was considering deploying my next project there

rz2k12y 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=...

[2] https://developers.google.com/appengine/docs/python/tools/li...

kevando12y ago

It's great. I use it mostly for small projects and weird prototyping ideas (http://wookietranslator.com). It does take a while to configure and get going (unlike Heroku) but Google has good documentation for Python.

ma2rten12y 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.

1 more reply

hrvbr12y ago

Snapchat runs on GAE so it must not be too bad.

http://blog.snapchat.com/

mik3y12y ago· 1 in thread

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

[2] https://groups.google.com/d/msg/boto-dev/fNM7AFM1Ors/x-nf_MS...

res0nat0r12y 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?

txutxu12y ago· 1 in thread

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

Just in case.

dekhn12y ago

In particular, see the form at the bottom to request more resources: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1vb2MkAr9JcHrp6myQ3oTxCyBv2c...

jgemedinaOP12y ago

Same %, still amazon might beat GCE when it comes to features.

http://www.networkworld.com/news/2013/120313-google-compute-...

tbarbugli12y 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 :)

kevando12y 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.

anvarik12y ago

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

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse

28 comments

20 comments · 8 top-level

rurounijones12y ago· 5 in thread

> 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.

nknighthb12y ago

rurounijones12y 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.

2 more replies

rll12y ago

Seems they are just trying to match EC2 here, not beat them. http://aws.amazon.com/ec2-sla/ says 99.95% as well.

rurounijones12y ago

Breaking news, Google admits Amazon has set an "Incredibly high bar" with regards to High Availability :p

thezilch12y ago

Rackspace will only give 3 9s.

mnml_12y ago· 5 in thread

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

tiziano8812y ago

What's wrong with GAE? Honest question, I was considering deploying my next project there

rz2k12y 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=...

[2] https://developers.google.com/appengine/docs/python/tools/li...

kevando12y ago

ma2rten12y ago

1 more reply

hrvbr12y ago

Snapchat runs on GAE so it must not be too bad.

http://blog.snapchat.com/

mik3y12y ago· 1 in thread

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?

[1] https://github.com/boto/boto/pull/1159

[2] https://groups.google.com/d/msg/boto-dev/fNM7AFM1Ors/x-nf_MS...

res0nat0r12y ago

txutxu12y ago· 1 in thread

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

Just in case.

dekhn12y ago

In particular, see the form at the bottom to request more resources: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1vb2MkAr9JcHrp6myQ3oTxCyBv2c...

jgemedinaOP12y ago

Same %, still amazon might beat GCE when it comes to features.

http://www.networkworld.com/news/2013/120313-google-compute-...

tbarbugli12y 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 :)

kevando12y 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.

anvarik12y ago

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

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse