Google Professional Cloud Architect Study Guide

Chapter 1. GCP Core Compute and Data Services

Ten years ago, I spent a fair amount of time in meetings where it was my job to talk some client into using the cloud. They would say something like, “But we’re a XXX (financial services, healthcare, insurance, manufacturing, scientific research,…) company, so we couldn’t possibly use the cloud.” I would then start my counterarguments, usually by asking them if they really thought they did a better job at XXX (security, high availability, scalability, data center efficiency,…) than Google.

But the situation has changed. Where organizational interest in using the cloud used to start with the geeks down in the basement and worked its way up, today we’re seeing a lot of impetus coming from upper management and blasting its way down. Some uber-manager goes off to a conference where all they hear is “cloud this” and “cloud that,” and isn’t the cloud the solution to all of your business woes? They come back to work with a gleam in their eye and a skip in their step. They slap their desks and say, “We’re moving to the cloud! You, yes you, make that happen.”

Unfortunately, that manager lighting the move to the cloud bonfire has no real idea what they are asking or how their people should properly go about making it happen. But hey, full speed ahead!

To put it another way, we’ve shifted from a world full of companies who were mostly just dipping their toes into the cloud waters because they really weren’t sure about this whole cloud thing, ...