Learn about Google Cloud Launcher over coffee with Fatima Otori - Coffee with a Googler Video Lecture | Coffee with a Googler - IT & Software

today I'm meeting with Fatima or Tori to
talk about Google cloud launcher and how
I can get my site into the cloud in less
time than it takes to order a tall
americano
Fatima so you work on Google cloud
launcher yes I do is all about it what
does it do
Google cloud launcher is Google's
implementation of a software marketplace
okay and what that means is it's really
a an online store for VMs right so these
are VMs that run on top of Google cloud
platform and host or represent some of
the popular applications that you as an
individual developer or even businesses
can come on there and and create
solutions for what they need so for
example I if I want to build a website
with WordPress it's gonna give me
everything for that yes exactly so in
cloud launcher today we're hosting a
number of software packages popular like
WordPress and then other ones that are
more enterprise related and so you can
go on there you can find a wordpress vm
that's really essentially been
pre-configured for you and so in if
within a few clicks you can be up and
running with your own personal website
so that can be pretty complex right
there's the there's the virtual machine
with its operating system you're gonna
have like a language like PHP the
database that just software and all the
bits to link it all together and that
can be done with like one-click type
launch yes so the advantage for launcher
is exactly to take away that complexity
from the end user and so when these VMs
are packaged and supplied by our
third-party providers they take care of
all that for you so they come
pre-configured with the OS the database
and any other any other application
dependencies that you would need so if
you're running WordPress your MySQL
instance is already pre-configured in
that VM and so for you as an end user
you can really get up and running within
a few clicks you do have the the
flexibility to pick the size of your VM
which is the size of your machine based
on how much you think your workload will
be but within a few clicks you can
deploy and you can have a wordpress site
up and running
that is really cool cuz I've built a few
WordPress sites in my time and it's all
not plumbing and all that getting stuff
to work it's it's worth it in the end
because it's terrific but it's a lot of
fiddling yeah it is an end cloud
launcher is really the easiest way for
end users to explore Google cloud
platform and and for that reason cool
cool so can I put you on the spot and
ask you to demo it of course nice you
came prepared I came prepared so let me
just log into my machine right now
and so if you can see I'm just going to
easily access the cloud launcher site by
going to cloud google.com slash launcher
that brings you to our cloud store as
you can see we're featuring a number of
popular packages up top but if you know
what you're looking for like WordPress
we also have a search bar where you can
go and type in WordPress ok and you can
see your different options for WordPress
and so here you have three different
options one for running just a single
website and then multi-site WordPress
instance and so you're free to select
either one well I'm not popular enough
to have a multi-site so I think I'll
just stick with the single one that's
fine okay so I'm gonna select the single
site WordPress VM as we mentioned before
right you can see on the right hand side
here what's contained in this VM so it
tells you what operating system is
included it also gives you information
about the database that's been
pre-configured the one that I selected
is an open-source version of WordPress
so WordPress is open source and so
there's no pricing attached to the image
itself right of course there is still
the underlying compute cost and so we
asked to pick the different machines
exactly and so we give you an estimate
of pricing here as well as you'll see on
the site we now have commercial
solutions on car launcher where there is
a cost for for licensing those things
and I assume some operating systems also
have a cost of
oh that's really neat that's let's build
a wordpress yep
and so as you can see you scroll down
and you know really what's contained on
this side is you know tutorials and
documentation on how to get started but
if you're comfortable with that you can
simply click this button that says
launch on compute engine okay so we've
done that and it's opening up my
developer console mm-hmm associate with
a project exactly and so I'll just go
and take a project of mine and oh yes
and so now before I hit the button to
deploy you know if I want to give my
deployment a new name I can I select the
zone that I I want my instance to be
spun up on and my machine sighs I have
flexibility to select that as well
I'll just go ahead and like pick a more
sizable image and then have a popular
site yes of course and then I also have
my choice of disk I'll live
live it as is and then you have some
networking firewall options as well
which I won't change at the time so I go
ahead and click the ploy and give that a
few minutes to pop up cloud launcher
announced support deployment manager
internally and so what this allows you
to do is to be able to save any
configuration of your environment that
you've created and use that template
anywhere else on Google cloud platform
also you know if you're doing more than
just the point single VM instance you
can easily manage it through this config
you I to specify how many instances of a
particular solution and I was just
creating everything right yes I'm
setting up that I see the firewall yes
so while that is spinning up I just want
to go point out some of the other
commercial solutions that we have
available on launcher so I'll click
enterprise DB which is a our enterprise
Postgres option in launcher and I just
wanted to point out you know so this one
is not open source it actually has a
price attached to to it and but you know
just as you saw you can see the
breakdown of the pricing and so this is
this is actually strong for our users
because they want to know what they're
paying for before they actually run
exactly
and with this solution you can get full
documentation on tutorials of how to use
this particular solution and you also
have a direct link to partner support
and so if you want to call support
here's a link for you to do so thanks
and so it's up and running and I'll just
go ahead and actually just go to the
site itself and here you go your blog is
up and running of course you have the
admin console if you want to go and
actually publish content or design your
blog however you want to from really
from nothing you have a full WordPress
base infrastructure built in just a few
minutes exactly so this is great stuff
for me as a developer but what if I'm an
enterprise what if I like have a lot of
these things that device or an offering
actually that's a very good question
because traditionally you know of course
developers are always you know jumping
in bits to see you know what's the
latest and greatest right but you know
surprisingly we're seeing that
enterprises are coming to or taken
advantage of marketplace such as cloud
launcher to test out your new solutions
not only to test but also you know when
they do get ready to deploy something in
production they can do that right from
the cloud launcher today
and so if today in cloud launcher we are
hosting just single VMs but we have now
deployment manager and so think of
deployment manager as the enabler to
deploying many many instances versus
just that one and which is what
enterprises are looking for not only
deployment being able to manage it
centrally as well yeah and it's a great
way to test a new software stack without
investing in all the hard that is that's
exactly right and we see enterprises
taking advantage of that as well
interesting yeah so where do you fit
into all of this Fatima what do you do
here at Google yes so I work on a team
called the Google cloud partner team and
our main job our sole job is to bring
the best and free partners to Google
cloud platform to enable our end users
freedom of choice I work primarily with
the with the partners that we unboard on
super cloud launcher and we do
everything from verifying this packages
making sure that they're up
and they are what they say they do what
they say they would be a Google cloud
platform so we work with partners to
bring that solution to the store but
then we also help them spread their
message and what the right way to use
the solution is to the end user actually
you bring up an interesting point
because when you're saying it's like you
want to verify that it's the right thing
like if I'm getting WordPress that
really is WordPress but what also then
happens like if I we've now just built a
WordPress site together what happens
then when WordPress gets updated do I
need to go and start fiddling to update
or yeah no that's a good question and I
think you know this is something that
separates the experience that users get
from using cloud launcher versus some
other marketplaces they may know out
there and so going back to what we do as
a cloud platform partner team all the
partners that we bring on board we make
sure that you know it's not just a
transactional relationship right the
images they provide for us in the store
we make sure that when they do have an
update on there they notify Google I
like to use the analogy of an app store
today when you go to an app store you
download an app mmm you install it on
your phone when they're updates you get
push notifications on it
same thing on cloud launcher we make
sure that our partners are able to
adequately notify any of the users who's
using their solution on cloud launcher
and so this is a subtly support
mechanism that we've built into cloud
launcher very cool so yeah because I've
like if I'm building something I've got
multiple pieces of software in the stack
right was the operating system the
language the database that the software
tool itself and any of these can have
security packages that's one of the main
if I could say disadvantage of using
some software marketplaces because
traditionally what you've seen what
we've seen is that people go and they
deploy software the first version is
great and you know they're happy and
their project is up and running but
pretty soon security vulnerabilities pop
up right and they don't get notified and
so essentially we say you know from the
secondly deploy that software it's
essentially dead right and and we're
trying to avoid that that problem with
cloud launcher and so they would get
automatic updates if there's any change
to to the solution that they're running
right so yeah if I'm an IT admin and
I've got hundreds of sites that I'm
looking
one personal WordPress site is one thing
but like our country's own I need to
know which ones are working which ones
need updates and yeah so you're pushing
updates about that too yes that's really
cool how would I get started if I want
to build my own WordPress instead of
having you do it for me so you can go to
cloud.google.com slash launcher okay and
create your own Google account and you
have free will to use what you see there
in the cloud store nice so
cloud.google.com slash launcher so go
check it out now maybe you'll build a
wonderful site on WordPress or on
something else so please let us know if
you have any questions for me if you
have any questions for Fatima let us
know in the comments below and would
love to see what you build thank you