Learn about building global applications on Google Compute Engine ~ Cloud World

Did you know that every Google Compute Engine instance, regardless of region and zone, can communicate to every other instance over a project private network? It really is very simple to execute “ping my-european-instance” from a US virtual machine and have it work without any complex cross region configurations.

If you're an experienced developer who has deployed Cloud apps before, but not yet on Google Compute Engine, you might not know that all n1 Compute Engine instances use the same hardware configuration and provide a consistent level of performance. No longer do you need to spin up many machines, run performance test, and throw away poor performing machines.

To help experienced cloud developers transition to Compute Engine, we have published an article, Overview of Google Compute Engine for Cloud Developers, that highlights the key differentiators of Compute Engine and discusses the features that allow you to architect scalable and globally distributed systems.

In addition to the overview, we have also published a deeper dive technical look at deploying apps on Compute Engine, along with a sample application that you can download and run.

The article Building High Availability Applications on Google Compute Engine introduces you to building distributed applications on Google Compute Engine. It provides implementation details of the following web application architecture that utilizes common software packages for load balancers, web servers, and databases.

High availability application on Google Compute Engine

Google Compute Engine provides tools such as startup scripts and meta data that can be used to automate the deployment of key components across multiple zones. Many of the technologies developers are familiar with deploying on virtual machines are a great fit on Compute Engine and can benefit from advanced features such as the global project private network. As Google continues to build out managed services to abstract the complexities involved in a self managed implementation, developers will always have the freedom to use their preferred technology.

Get the Code!

Our High Availability LAMP Stack sample application is ready for you to download from Github, and the tutorial guides you through using it. The sample application contains a Python tool for automatically creating a LAMP stack with load balancers, web servers, and database servers. It demonstrates how Google Compute Engine tools and features can be used to automate deployments across multiple zones.

If you want to define the next generation of cloud applications and help developers build globally distributed applications on cutting edge technology, we are always hiring! Check out our job postings for Solutions Architects and Cloud Technology Managers if you are interested in joining our Solutions Team.