Welcome to the first article in "Learn Google Cloud" series!
I have been tinkering with Software for over 20 years, and I am writing this to help myself as I juggle between various tools and technologies. I want to get a quick refresher on Google Cloud Platform, written by me. Because I am a developer who loves to do hands on. This series may be helpful for other developers looking to learn Google Cloud Platform(gcp). In this series I will focus on Infrastructure as a Service(IaaS) and will be using Terraform
The GCP Free Tier: Your Playground
One of the best ways to learn is by doing, and Google makes this accessible with its generous free tier:
Free Trial Benefits:
- $300 credit for 90 days to explore any GCP service
- No automatic charges when trial ends
Always Free Tier (doesn't expire):
- Compute Engine: 1 e2-micro instance per month
- Cloud Storage: 5GB of Standard Storage
- BigQuery: 1TB of queries per month
- Cloud Functions: 2 million invocations per month
- And many more services with free monthly quotas
This means you can build and run real applications without spending a cent initially.
What You'll Need to Get Started
To follow along with this series, you'll need:
- A Google Account: Any Gmail or Google Workspace account works
- A Credit Card: Required for free trial signup, but you won't be charged without your permission
- Basic Technical Knowledge: Familiarity with the command line, basic networking concepts, and Terraform
- Curiosity and Patience: Cloud platforms are vast—take time to experiment and learn
Creating Your First GCP Account
Let's get started:
-
Navigate to Google Cloud Console: Go to console.cloud.google.com
Sign In: Use your Google account credentials
-
Activate Free Trial: Click on "Activate" and follow the prompts
- Accept terms of service
- Choose your country
- Add payment information (for verification only)
-
Create Your First Project: GCP organizes resources into projects
- Give it a meaningful name (e.g., "learn-gcp")
- Note your Project ID (unique identifier)
- Explore the Console: Take a moment to familiarize yourself with the navigation menu
Key Concepts to Understand
Before we dive deep in upcoming articles, here are foundational concepts:
Projects: The basic organizing entity in GCP. All resources belong to a project. Projects provide isolation and resource management boundaries.
Resources: Everything you create in GCP—virtual machines, databases, storage buckets—is a resource.
Services: GCP offers 100+ services across compute, storage, databases, networking, AI/ML, and more.
APIs: Every GCP service is accessed via APIs. The console is just a UI wrapper around these APIs.
Regions and Zones: GCP infrastructure is distributed globally across regions (geographical locations) and zones (isolated locations within regions).
What's Coming Next
In the next articles, we'll dive into Google Cloud fundamentals, services offered, and provision resources using teraform:
- GCP's well-architected framework
- GCP Services Offered
- Install
gcloudcommand line. - Terraform basics.
By the end of this series, you'll have hands-on experience with the most important GCP services and be ready to architect, build, and deploy production applications on Google Cloud.
First Assignment
Before the next article, I encourage the reader to:
- Create your GCP account and activate the free trial
- Explore the console interface—click around and see what services are available
- Create a simple project and note your Project ID
- Enable the Cloud Shell (icon in the top-right corner) and run
gcloud config listto see your configuration.
The cloud journey can feel overwhelming at first, but remember—every expert was once a beginner. Take it one step at a time, experiment fearlessly (that's what the free tier is for!), and don't hesitate to explore beyond what's covered in this series.
References
- Official Documentation: cloud.google.com/docs
Have questions or topics you'd like covered? Leave a comment below!
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