Looking back at my 10 years in Google Cloud
Some of the most important Google Cloud services launched in the last 10 years
Today marks my 10-year anniversary with Google Cloud. My first Google Cloud project was created on January 13th 2014 (UTC). Since that time, Google Cloud has grown from just a handful of services to an industry leading hyperscaler with well over 250 different services at last count. (Don’t believe me? Check out the Google Cloud Developer Cheatsheet!)
My First Google Cloud Project
My first Google Cloud project, aptly named “TEST Cloud Project”, was created at 11:20PM on Sunday January 12th 2014 (aka January 13 at 4:20AM UTC).
$ gcloud projects describe test-cloud-project
createTime: '2014-01-13T04:20:40.116Z'
lifecycleState: ACTIVE
name: TEST Cloud Project
...As it turns out, the project has been costing me 2.5 cents per day (80 cents per month) for a compute engine instance;)
Upon further investigation, all that was left was 2 VM instances that have long been shutdown. The disk image is of Centos 6 from November 2013.
At that point in time, Compute Engine had only gone GA (General Availability) 6 months earlier. But for me, this was just the beginning of my journey with Google Cloud Platform that would grow into 100’s of Compute Engine instances, petabytes of storage, and countless Google-managed services.
Google Cloud 2014–2024
Over the last 10 years, Google Cloud has grown into one of the leading hyperscalers — starting from just App Engine in 2008 (or way back to Gmail in 2004). Here are some major milestones and services that I utilized over the last 10 years in Google Cloud:
2014
Google officially formed the Google Cloud Platform (GCP) team, consolidating its cloud services under one banner.
Cloud SQL goes GA in early 2014. Despite being incredibly buggy at first, this is a service that I used extensively to replace on-prem MySQL instances.
Later in 2014, Google acquires Stackdriver and Firebase. The foundation is laid for early versions of GKE and Dataflow as well.
2015
In 2015, Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE) arrived, simplifying container orchestration and deployment. This managed Kubernetes service made it easier to build and scale containerized applications, a technology poised to revolutionize software development.
2016
Apigee and Qwiklabs are acquired by Google, paving the way for API-first development and laying the foundation for the Skillsboost enablement platform.
2017
Cloud Spanner is released in BETA, setting the foundation for a highly available, globally-distributed database that will be used to power a number of Google’s billion-user services — including Google Ads, Gmail, and Google Photos.
2018
Google’s release of TPUs (Tensor Processing Units) in 2018 had a significant and multifaceted impact, influencing both the internal workings of Google itself and the broader landscape of AI research and development by offering efficient and cost effective processing of AI and ML workloads.
2019
Recognizing the evolving needs of businesses, Google unveiled Anthos in 2019. This platform empowered consistent hybrid and multi-cloud deployments, allowing organizations to seamlessly manage applications across on-premises, edge, and multiple cloud providers.
2020
Google strengthened its data analytics offerings in 2020 by acquiring Looker. This BI platform provided users with advanced data visualization and exploration tools, empowering them to make data-driven decisions with greater clarity and confidence.
2021
Google’s commitment to democratizing AI materialized in 2021 with Vertex AI. This unified platform brought together Google’s AI and ML tools and services under one roof, providing developers with a comprehensive suite for building, training, and deploying AI models across various domains.
2022
The familiar comfort of PostgreSQL met the power of Google’s cloud in 2022 with the launch of AlloyDB for PostgreSQL. This fully managed, serverless PostgreSQL compatible database service combined the best of both worlds, offering developers an easy-to-use, highly scalable solution for their database needs.
2023
From my perspective, 2023 was the Year of Generative AI. It’s true that Google Cloud launched a number of important products and updates this year, but all of that has been overshadowed by the explosion GenAI.
Another milestone for Google Cloud occurred in 2023. For the first time in the company’s history, Google Cloud turned a profit of $191 million in Q1 2023, followed by 2 more profitable quarters (Q2: $395M, Q3: $266M)
2024
What will 2024 bring for Google Cloud? I guess we’ll have to wait and see….. Or we can just ask Generative AI;)
