We're using Google Cloud as infrastructure for hosting MySQL, but don't use Google's Database as a Service. We manage our database ourselves.
Site Reliability Engineer at a computer software company with 10,001+ employees
Our databases have never been affected by an outage, but it could use some better migration and backup tools
Pros and Cons
- "I haven't had any trouble setting up Google Cloud."
- "I haven't had any trouble setting up Google Cloud."
- "Google Cloud lacks some tools for database migration. I've only used MySQL and AWS in my career, so those are the only ones I can compare. AWS has a database migration tool that you can integrate with a cloud backup, so can take that backup and restore it in the AWS public cloud, but it's not the same with Google Cloud."
- "Google Cloud lacks some tools for database migration."
What is our primary use case?
What needs improvement?
Google Cloud lacks some tools for database migration. I've only used MySQL and AWS in my career, so those are the only ones I can compare. AWS has a database migration tool that you can integrate with a cloud backup, so can take that backup and restore it in the AWS public cloud, but it's not the same with Google Cloud. We have to use a utility called mysqldump, which takes a long time to restore. That's a big shortcoming of Google Cloud. I don't know why they haven't thought of it.
For how long have I used the solution?
I've been using Google Cloud Platform for about a year.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
We weren't affected during the last major Google Cloud outage. We weren't in the availability zone that was affected. We haven't used it like Infrastructure as a Service. It doesn't provide you a lot unless all your services are in that particular cloud.
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Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
I've used all three major public cloud platforms that offer infrastructure as a service. It's hard to compare. If you're a bigger enterprise, it's better to use multiple public clouds so that you are not putting all your eggs in one basket.
For example, you might have an outage in Google Cloud but not in Azure or vice versa. It's the same for AWS. I can't say it won't ever happen, but all three major public clouds haven't gone down at the same time.
How was the initial setup?
I haven't had any trouble setting up Google Cloud.
What other advice do I have?
I rate Google Cloud seven out of 10.
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
Application Development Analyst at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees
Has good security and is user friendly and reliable
Pros and Cons
- "Google Cloud is user friendly and reliable. The most valuable feature is the security of Google Cloud."
- "Google Cloud is user friendly and reliable, and the most valuable feature is the security of Google Cloud."
- "Google Cloud would benefit from more detailed practical hands-on training especially in your mother tongue, not just English."
- "Google Cloud would benefit from more detailed practical hands-on training especially in your mother tongue, not just English."
What is our primary use case?
I use Google Cloud for security purposes when sending files or any important document to others.
What is most valuable?
Google Cloud is user friendly and reliable. The most valuable feature is the security of Google Cloud.
What needs improvement?
Google Cloud would benefit from more detailed practical hands-on training especially in your mother tongue, not just English.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been working with Google Cloud for the past four to five months.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
I am satisfied with the stability of Google Cloud.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
It is easy to scale Google Cloud.
How are customer service and support?
To maintain Google Cloud you have to maintain the servers as well. Sending files to a particular person, the server to server connection is mandatory. If a server is down then the file will come written back or stopped there.
How was the initial setup?
Deployment of Google Cloud is straightforward and quick and does not take much time.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
Pricing is high compared to other solutions.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
Comparing it to AWS Cloud, I thought Google Cloud has a better structure of cloud computing.
AWS is also a bit tricky. Google Cloud provides many different options on how to do tasks, such as sending a file. I also looked at how Google Cloud will be unstructured and structured to the different kinds of Cloud structures when sent to a particular receiver.
What other advice do I have?
Prior to using Google Cloud, I was unaware of how it exactly worked. They provide you with all the information you need, including how it works, how it is structured, and how the tasks are done.
I have already recommended Google Cloud to others because they will know how their files are transferred, how their security is maintained, and what exactly the servers do in the background.
I would rate Google Cloud an 8 out of 10.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Public Cloud
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
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Technology Competency and Solution Head at LearningMate
Easy to learn, stable, and auto-scalable
Pros and Cons
- "It is stable. It is easy to learn and very straightforward."
- "We are building our data solutions by using Google Cloud services, building analytics dashboards, and coming out with predictive analytics for education."
- "They need to improve the costing for predictive analytics, which is mainly related to the tools that come with AI. They also need to improve the BigQuery cost optimization and the visualization."
- "Their tech support is not so great. It takes more than 48 hours to get a response from the Google team."
What is our primary use case?
We build solutions based on the Google platform. We don't create solutions for ourselves. We create them for our customers.
We are using it specifically for our machine learning and data analytics. We are building our data solutions by using Google Cloud services. We are building the analytics dashboards and coming out with predictive analytics for education.
What is most valuable?
It is stable. It is easy to learn and very straightforward.
What needs improvement?
They need to improve the costing for predictive analytics, which is mainly related to the tools that come with AI. They also need to improve the BigQuery cost optimization and the visualization.
Their support could be faster.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using this solution for the last one year.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
It is stable.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
It is auto-scalable. We have around 30 to 40 associates on this.
At the moment, we have around three customers who are using this particular product.
How are customer service and technical support?
Their tech support is not so great. It takes more than 48 hours to get a response from the Google team. Their support could be faster.
How was the initial setup?
It is a cloud-based solution, so there is no installation.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
It has a monthly subscription. The customers pay based on the usage.
What other advice do I have?
We are getting into a partnership with Google very soon. Almost our whole organization will be a Google partner. We recommend Google for every educational institution.
I would rate Google Cloud a nine out of 10.
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer. Partner
Executive Director at a computer software company with 10,001+ employees
Light, feature-rich, stable and scalable, but it could be more user-friendly
Pros and Cons
- "It is easy to use and has a very familiar interface."
- "Google is fantastic and I think that people should go for it."
- "I feel that the Google product is incomplete with regard to internal communications. It is an area that needs some improvement."
- "I feel that the Google product is incomplete with regard to internal communications. It is an area that needs some improvement."
What is our primary use case?
We use Google Suite of products for enterprise and we build our technology products for warehouse management systems, and transportation management systems.
We use Google Cloud for our enterprise. It is used for pretty much everything from emails to storage and to communicate everything.
What is most valuable?
Google Cloud is very light.
It is easy to use and has a very familiar interface.
I have used Microsoft and I have used Google. I feel equally comfortable with both, but Google is lighter and it's easy to work with on your mobile devices.
Google has a lot of features that are really good. I am happy with the features that Google offers.
What needs improvement?
As far as internal communications, Microsoft is much better because of the way it is structured. I feel more comfortable with Microsoft.
I feel that the Google product is incomplete with regard to internal communications. It is an area that needs some improvement.
The user experience could be better. Microsoft user experience is better.
The compatibility of different devices could be better because it looks different on different devices, It's not the same.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been with the company for seven or eight months and it has been used for a long time before that. They have been using it from the start.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
I am satisfied with the stability of Google Cloud.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Google Cloud is very scalable. Many companies use Google Cloud because of its scalability.
We have more than 30,000 users in our organization who are using Google Cloud.
How are customer service and technical support?
I have not had any issues with the technical support in the eight months I have been using Google Cloud.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup is easy. It's quite straightforward.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
I am not familiar with the pricing, but I would guess that it is probably cheaper than Microsoft Suite. There are a lot of startups that use Google Cloud.
What other advice do I have?
We are a Google house, and we don't use any of the Microsoft products.
Google is fantastic and I think that people should go for it. I would recommend using Google Cloud.
I would rate Google Cloud a seven out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Private Cloud
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer. partner
Business owner at Boers PR + Marketing
Great cloud source for document sharing
Pros and Cons
- "Good storage and ease of access."
- "The storage is good and I think it's a good cloud source."
- "Uploading documents could be simplified."
- "There are occasionally things which are inconvenient. For example, uploading pictures or files then requires you to transfer to a different folder."
What is our primary use case?
My primary use case is for cloud storage but I also use it for sharing documents with people who don't use Office 365. In my case, it's mainly for personal use and less for business. I'm a customer of Google Cloud.
What is most valuable?
The storage is good and I think it's a good cloud source. I can access information from any client and from any device. It's convenient.
What needs improvement?
There are occasionally things which are inconvenient. For example, uploading pictures or files then requires you to transfer to a different folder. Maybe there's a way to choose where a document is uploaded to and that can be done directly.
For how long have I used the solution?
I've been using Google Cloud for a couple of years.
How are customer service and technical support?
The online documentation is very good and if I need help, I go to wiki and get a decent explanation. I've never been directly in touch with support.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
Licensing is paid on a monthly basis and I think the cost is reasonable.
What other advice do I have?
I rate this solution an eight out of 10.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Public Cloud
If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?
Google
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
CTO at a healthcare company with 11-50 employees
Priced-well, easy to set up, and you can easily use it through a web browser
Pros and Cons
- "You can just connect and start using it through a browser within a few minutes."
- "The best part of Google Cloud is that it is cheaper than the competitors, and it is easy to set up, monitor, and manage, as you can just connect and start using it through a browser within a few minutes."
- "Monitoring and usage reporting could be improved."
- "The support is bad, and you have to purchase it separately."
What is our primary use case?
I am in the process of migrating from on-premises to the cloud.
We use it for IT infrastructure deployment and management.
What is most valuable?
The best part of Google Cloud is that it is cheaper than the competitors.
It is easy to set up, monitor, and manage.
You can just connect and start using it through a browser within a few minutes.
What needs improvement?
Monitoring and usage reporting could be improved. For example, they don't provide the CPU primary memory usage report. They do provide a CPU usage report, but not the memory. This is something that is critical for people interested in monitoring because if you are burdening the machine then you want the option of providing more RAM.
There is no graph or monitoring in the console; if it is there then I haven't found it, so it is something that takes extra time to figure out.
Google does not provide free support and at the least, email support should be available. I am not asking for free chat or telephone support, but given that we are paying to use the machine, email support should be included.
The alerts are somewhat cryptic and do not say much about what is going on.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Google Cloud for almost three years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The stability is good.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Google Cloud is a scalable product.
How are customer service and technical support?
The support is bad, and you have to purchase it separately. There is no free support available.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
I am currently working with both Google Cloud and AWS. I am in the process of also trying to implement IBM Cloud.
How was the initial setup?
It is easy to set up and up the time for provisioning depends on the type of machine that you want to set up. It will not take longer than 15 or 20 minutes if you know how to do it.
What about the implementation team?
We have two or three people in the organization who set up the machines.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The support costs extra, even when it comes to email.
What other advice do I have?
This is a good product, but I wouldn't immediately recommend it because there are a lot of options available. People have to choose based on their requirements and location. There is not much different, so people have to look at particular requirements, cost, and support.
I agree that cost is a factor but support should also be considered because it is needed from time to time, and Google does not provide free support. Given that we are paying for the machine, we should have to pay for costly support in addition to that.
This is a good product but I would like better monitoring, alerting, and reporting.
I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Public Cloud
If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?
Google
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
Senior Solutions Expert at a comms service provider with 10,001+ employees
A robust, storage and document sharing solution that is easy to use and access
Pros and Cons
- "It's robust, and it has a wide reach in terms of office applications including storage."
- "People see the ease, simplicity, and again the Ubiquiti of the service attached to it."
- "There are issues with stability."
- "There are issues with stability. There may be capacity issues at the time but it's hard to guess what the root cause is."
What is our primary use case?
The primary use case of this solution is for storage and document sharing.
For example, if I have a customer and they want to share a document, I can access it through Google.
What is most valuable?
Ubiquiti is what is most valuable. They have basically mimicked Microsoft, giving you the equivalent of Office 365 type of services that are available.
It's robust, and it has a wide reach in terms of office applications including storage.
It's easy to access in a public cloud environment.
What needs improvement?
Every once in a while I have trouble accessing it, but I don't know if that's a function of the Cloud, the way the Cloud is set up, or it's just something on my browser.
Stability could be improved in terms of the Cloud in general administration. It's frustrating when companies have to deal with Cloud Administration.
Change configuration management is an issue. I can envision customer companies that are Cloud-enabled where their biggest problem is having to keep up with the changes and managing it.
The API is constantly evolving. IP addresses are constantly changing and it's hard to keep up with all of those changes.
Typically it is being administered through IT organizations, although they have no visibility.
If you engage in a security solution through a cloud provider, you have no view, it's all faith, trust, and hope.
How do you reconcile the two, to provide the visibility, do it seamlessly, and make it easy to use?
If they could include a popup section where all of the new updates are. That would be helpful. I don't have the experience or intelligence to know what it is that they are showing, or where I can get that I might need, which would make a feature like this important.
It would like it if upon starting the browser, it tells you that it is out of date and asks if you would like to update. That would lead customers to take the optimal path as opposed to having to figure it out themselves.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
There are issues with stability. There may be capacity issues at the time but it's hard to guess what the root cause is. There is no visibility. You don't have the visibility unless you really know upfront what your problem is. Otherwise, you are left hanging.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
It's scalable, but I don't plan to increase my usage. Personally, I avoid a public cloud offering system from a security perspective unless it's something a customer requires to access documents.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
Prior to the public cloud, I used another solution more like a public hosting-type of service. It didn't give you the scale and the means of payment that you have with the Cloud. As an example, look at Lotus Notes, 1980 technology. There is no comparison, Google is far superior. People see the ease, simplicity, and again the Ubiquiti of the service attached to it.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup is simple. You go in there and you register. It starts with your email address and then you are done.
What other advice do I have?
We provide private networks, what we call VPNs. It is the older, traditional VPN type service for our customers, which gives them security and performance metrics that you can't get from the internet.
We have a gen engine that has that interface into the cloud providers including Google.
We don't by services from Google, we are not even doing infrastructures, or platform as a service or software as a service.
We are not using this solution in my organization. We have our own internal storage for security reasons, and predominantly, we use it in-house. We call it orange, it's flex storage. It's our intranet.
We either use in-house or have exclusive arrangements with companies.
The concept of the cloud is great, you have the scale, you have the financial model, metered pay as you go, those are great, but what's worse is that it's a black box.
I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Public Cloud
If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?
Google
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
Senior Software Developer Team Lead at Dilowa
Scales easily, simple to set up and offers great pricing
Pros and Cons
- "This is a solution that's so easy to expand when you need it to. It's the best I've ever seen. It's much better than Azure."
- "This is a solution that's so easy to expand when you need to; it's the best I've ever seen and much better than Azure."
- "The management side for the database needs some work. Currently, you do everything from the APP. It would be nice to have an interface where you can go in and maintain data and deal with records and do something online."
- "The management side for the database needs some work. Currently, you do everything from the app."
What is our primary use case?
We largely use the solution for hosting and for the database it offers.
What is most valuable?
Both the hosting and the database are the most valuable features on this product.
What needs improvement?
The analytics could be improved. I need to be able to give them to the client. It is there, but you have to go to Google Cloud to see it. I want it added as a service so I can add it to the client-side and make it easily sharable with my clients.
The management side for the database needs some work. Currently, you do everything from the app. It would be nice to have an interface where you can go in and maintain data and deal with records and do something online. Also the ability to migrate the database should be a bit easier. You can't just copy a database and make another duplicate. You have to do all that bit manually.
For how long have I used the solution?
I've only been using the solution for a total of three months at this point.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
So far, after three months, I can say it's very stable. I haven't had issues with bugs or glitches. It hasn't crashed at all.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
This is a solution that's so easy to expand when you need to. It's the best I've ever seen. It's much better than Azure.
How are customer service and technical support?
Everything in the few months we've used the solution has been great so we haven't had a need to contact technical support. I can't speak to how they are because I have never directly had to deal with them.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
I've used Azure as well. I've used that for a while and now I've moved to Google Cloud. Then, for a client, I'm also going to use AWS.
We switched from Azure because the setup is too complex, and, on the scalability side, you have to set it up yourself and I found it didn't actually work well. You have to constantly monitor your server and then add a new VM. There's a lot more effort required which is unnecessary if you have a solution that cuts the workload down. Google simplifies things on many levels, and it does the scaling for you.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup isn't complex per se. It's simple once you understand it, but it takes some time to figure it out. Once you do, it's very simple afterwards. In our case, it took us two weeks to get everything fully operational.
We don't require any maintenance. We just need to make sure we keep our data clean.
What about the implementation team?
I handled the implementation myself. I didn't require any consultants or integrators to assist me.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The licensing for Google Cloud seems to be quite cheap and they're actually quite reasonable in comparison to Azure, which, as it turns out, is quite expensive. Even though Azure has a data center in South Africa it's still quite costly. There's no scaling, so if you go with the VM, you pay 2500 Rand. When you add another VM, it's another 2500 Rand even though you don't use the whole thing. With Google, you can go up as incrementally as you need to, even if it's just 30 Rand.
With Google, there's no licensing. Everything is included, just been based on the usage.
What other advice do I have?
We're just a customer. We don't have any special connection to the company in any way.
Obviously, with Google, everything is the latest version. Google updates everything for you, so there isn't usually a time when we're on an "old version" of the solution.
We use the solution on a daily basis.
I would recommend Google Cloud. At the moment it's in third place, according to the standards. Right now it's ranked AWS, then Azure, then Google. Even though it's technically third, it's much better to use and it's a much better environment.
I'd rate the solution nine out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Public Cloud
If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?
Google
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
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AWS also looks like a good option. To get certified https://www.udemy.com/course/e...