Introduction

Google Cloud is a leading public cloud that provides its users with some of the same software, hardware, and networking infrastructure used to power Google services. Businesses, organizations, and individuals can launch servers in minutes, store petabytes of data, and implement global virtual clouds with Google Cloud. It includes an easy-to-use console interface, command-line tools, and application programming interfaces (APIs) for managing resources in the cloud. Users can work with general resources, such as virtual machines (VMs) and persistent disks, or opt for highly focused services for Internet of Things (IoT), machine learning, media, and other specialized domains.

Deploying and managing applications and services in Google Cloud requires a clear understanding of the way Google structures user accounts and manages identities and access controls; you also need to understand the advantages and disadvantages of using various services. Certified Associate Cloud Engineers have demonstrated the knowledge and skills needed to deploy and operate infrastructure, services, and networks in Google Cloud.

This study guide is designed to help you understand Google Cloud in depth so that you can meet the needs of those operating resources in Google Cloud. Yes, this book will, of course, help you pass the Associate Cloud Engineer certification exam, but this is not an exam cram guide. You will learn more than is required to pass the exam; you will understand how to meet the day-to-day challenges faced by cloud engineers, including choosing services, managing users, deploying and monitoring infrastructure, and helping map business requirements into cloud-based solutions.

Each chapter in this book covers a single topic and includes an "Exam Essentials" section that outlines key information you should know to pass the certification exam. There are also exercises to help you review and reinforce your understanding of the chapter's topic. Sample questions are included at the end of each chapter so that you can get a sense of the types of questions you will see on the exam. The book also includes flashcards and practice exams that cover all topics you'll learn about with this guide.

What Does This Book Cover?

This book describes products and services in Google Cloud. It does not include G Suite administration topics.

• Chapter 1: Overview of Google Cloud Platform   In the opening chapter, we look into the types of services provided by Google Cloud, which include compute, storage, and networking services as well as specialized services, such as machine learning products. This chapter also describes some of the key differences between cloud computing and data center or on-premises computing.
• Chapter 2: Google Cloud Computing Services   This chapter provides an overview of infrastructure services such as computing, storage, and networking. It introduces the concept of identity management and related services. It also introduces DevOps topics and tools for deploying and monitoring applications and resources. Google Cloud includes a growing list of specialized services, such as machine learning and natural language processing services. Those are briefly discussed in this chapter. The chapter introduces Google Cloud's organizational structure, with a look at regions and zones.
• Chapter 3: Projects, Service Accounts, and Billing   One of the first things you will do when starting to work with Google Cloud is to set up your accounts. In this chapter, you will learn how resources in accounts are organized into organizations, folders, and projects. You will learn how to create and edit these structures. You will also see how to enable APIs for particular projects as well as manage user identities and their access controls. This chapter describes how to create billing accounts and link them to projects. You will also learn how to create budgets and define billing alerts to help you manage costs.
• Chapter 4: Introduction to Computing in Google Cloud   In this chapter, you will see the variety of options available for running applications and services in Google Cloud. Options include Compute Engine, which provides VMs running Linux or Windows operating systems. Cloud Run and App Engine are platform as a service (PaaS) options that allows developers to run their applications without having to concern themselves with managing VMs. If you will be running multiple applications and services, you may want to take advantage of containers, which are a lightweight alternative to VMs. You will learn about containers and how to manage them with Kubernetes Engine. This chapter also introduces Cloud Functions, which is for event-driven, short-running tasks such as triggering the processing of an image loaded into Cloud Storage.
• Chapter 5: Computing with Compute Engine Virtual Machines   In this chapter, you will learn how to configure VMs, including selecting CPU, memory, storage options, and operating system images. You will learn how to use Google Cloud Console and Cloud Shell to work with VMs. In addition, you will see how to install the command-line interface and SDK, which you will use to start and stop VMs. The chapter also describes how to enable network access to VMs.
• Chapter 6: Managing Virtual Machines   In the previous chapter, you learned how to create VMs, and in this chapter you will learn how to manage individual and groups of VMs. You will start by managing a single instance of a VM using the Google Cloud console and then perform the same operations using Cloud Shell and the command line. You will also learn how to view currently running VMs. Next, you'll learn about instance groups, which allow you to create sets of VMs that you can manage as a single unit. In the section on instance groups, you will learn the difference between managed and unmanaged instance groups. You will also learn about preemptible instances, which are low-cost VMs that may be shut down by Google. You will learn about the cost-benefit trade-offs of preemptible instances. Finally, the chapter closes with guidelines for managing VMs.
• Chapter 7: Computing with Kubernetes   This chapter introduces Kubernetes Engine, Google's managed Kubernetes service. Kubernetes is a container orchestration platform created and released as open source by Google. In this chapter, you will learn the basics of containers, container orchestration, and the Kubernetes architecture. The discussion will include an overview of Kubernetes objects such as pods, services, volumes, and namespaces, as well as Kubernetes controllers such as ReplicaSets, Deployments, and Jobs.
  
  Next, the chapter turns to deploying a Kubernetes cluster using Google Cloud console, Cloud Shell, and SDK. You will also see how to deploy pods, which includes downloading an existing Docker image, building a Docker image, creating a pod, and then deploying an application to the Kubernetes cluster. Of course, you will need to know how to monitor a cluster of servers. This chapter provides a description of how to set up monitoring and logging with Cloud Operations, which is Google's application, service, container, and infrastructure monitoring service.
• Chapter 8: Managing Standard Mode Kubernetes Clusters   In this chapter you will learn the basics of managing a Kubernetes cluster, including viewing the status of the cluster, viewing the contents of the image repository, viewing details about images in the repository, and adding, modifying, and removing nodes, pods, and services. As in the chapter on managing VMs, in this chapter you will learn how to perform management operations with the three management tools: Google Cloud console, Cloud Shell, and SDK. The chapter concludes with a discussion of guidelines and good practices for managing a Kubernetes cluster.
• Chapter 9: Computing with Cloud Run and App Engine   Cloud Run and App Engine are part of Google Cloud's serverless offerings. This chapter introduces Cloud Run, a service for running containers in the cloud. You will learn about the difference between Cloud Run Services and Cloud Run Jobs. Cloud Run will likely replace App Engine as the preferred choice for running containers in a serverless service, but App Engine is still in use and will be covered in this book. You will learn about App Engine components such as applications, services, versions, and instances. The chapter also covers how to define configuration files and specify dependencies of an application. In this chapter, you will learn how to view App Engine resources using Google Cloud console, Cloud Shell, and SDK. The chapter also describes how to distribute workload by adjusting traffic with splitting parameters. You will also learn about autoscaling in App Engine.
• Chapter 10: Computing with Cloud Functions   Cloud Functions is for event-driven, serverless computations. This chapter introduces Cloud Functions and shows you how to use it to receive events, evoke services, and return results. Next, you'll see use cases for Cloud Functions, such as integrating with third-party APIs and event-driven processing. You will learn about Google's Pub/Sub service for publication- and subscription-based processing and how to use Cloud Functions with Pub/Sub. Cloud Functions are well suited to respond to events in Cloud Storage. The chapter describes Cloud Storage events and how to use Cloud Functions to receive and respond to those events. You will learn how to...