There is no one right or wrong way to use Google Cloud services. Every customer or company has a different way of using Google Cloud and all of them are good. Developers use the cloud via API calls or code execution and security officers might simply use the Google Cloud console from the browser.
In the following sections, we’ve described all the interfaces that can be used to manage and use Google Cloud.
For most users, the Google Cloud console will be the primary tool that they use to interact with Google Cloud. It uses a modern interface, with the possibility to customize the dashboard, allowing users to pin services and organize them for ease of use. The following figure shows a typical Google Cloud console. The Cloud console can be configured according to your requirements and what you want to see there. To do it, use the drag-and-drop functionality on the widgets:
Figure 2.5 – The Google Cloud console main screen
Typically, it can be accessed from computers as well as mobile devices.
Cloud Shell is a Linux shell provided for every Google Cloud user. It has a set of pre-installed development tools such as the gcloud CLI, kubectl, Terraform, and Git. Users can access it directly from the browser and it provides 5 GB of Persistent Disk storage.
Figure 2.6 – The Cloud Shell main screen
Cloud Shell is the ideal solution for users who don’t want to use a locally configured command-line interface or who want to always use the same pre-configured terminal, which is ready in a few seconds.
The gcloud CLI is a set of command-line tools for managing Google Cloud resources. With the gcloud CLI, you can perform all the actions that can be done in the browser-based Google Cloud console. The gcloud CLI can be installed on many OSs, including the following:
- Generic Linux
- Debian/Ubuntu
- Red Hat/Fedora/CentOS
- macOS
- Windows
In Figure 2.7, you will find the Google Cloud SDK installed on Windows. Although it might look different on your OS, the functionality is the same:
igure 2.7 – The gcloud CLI installed on Windows 10
To review the installation instructions, visit the following link: https://cloud.google.com/sdk/docs/install-sdk#installing_the_latest_version.
Cloud APIs allow users to interact with Google Cloud directly from your code. Cloud APIs provide a similar functionality to Cloud SDKs and the Google Cloud console. Integrating Cloud APIs with REST calls or client libraries is possible in many popular programming languages. For example, GCE can be accessed from client libraries written in C#, Go, Java, Node.js, PHP, Python, and Ruby.
The following is a JSON-formatted example of a GCE API with an IP address:
igure 2.8 – A sample representation of an IP address resource in the JSON-formatted GCE API
Google Cloud API resources can have different descriptions and use many different values.