Without a formal announcement, Google has launched a repository for storing code named Google Cloud Source Repositories. Currently in Beta, the repository allows users to store application-related code on the Google Cloud Platform (GCP). Users can set up a Git remote and perform push, pull, clone, log and other operations. The platform also allows users to connect a GitHub code repository to other code repositories such as GitHub or BitBucket. Additionally, the Google Cloud Source Repository features a Source Code Editor as well as integration with the Google Cloud Debugger. While the Google Cloud Source Repository hardly aspires to replace code repositories such as GitHub anytime in the near future, it represents yet another feather in the cap of the Google Cloud Platform in the form of a repository that enables customers to store, debug and deploy their code within the same platform. As such, the Google Cloud Source Repositories constitutes yet another moment in the evolution of the Google Cloud Platform into a one stop shopping ground for application development and hosting. Google Cloud Source Repositories participates in a larger ecosystem of code repositories for major IaaS platforms alongside the likes of the Amazon Web Services Git repository CodeCommit and Microsoft Azure’s Visual Studio Online service. The beta release of the platform currently allows for 500 MB of storage although developers should expect Google to monetize storage allocations for code in forthcoming months.
Tag: Google Cloud Platform
Avere Systems Partners With Google Cloud Platform To Deliver Hybrid Clouds For Compute And Storage Intensive Workloads
On Monday, Avere Systems announced a partnership with Google that empowers customers to transfer large data sets and workloads to the Google Cloud Platform. The collaboration between Avere Systems and Google means that companies can now transfer data from NAS storage systems to the Google Cloud Platform to enjoy the benefits of the scalability and performance of the same infrastructure that powers Google search, Gmail and Google Drive. Avere FXT Edge Filers technology from Avere Systems allows customers to run storage and compute workloads both on premise and in the cloud, thereby creating a hybrid cloud infrastructure optimized for cloud bursting scenarios and compute-intensive workloads. Avere Physical FXT Edge Filers deliver NAS for on-premise, file-based applications whereas Virtual FXT Edge Filers provides a software solution that manages a high performance storage infrastructure within a cloud-based platform. The combination of Avere Physical and Virtual FXT Filers allows customers to deploy solutions on premise and in the cloud while delivering high performance and low latency for big data applications. Because of its ability to support compute-intensive workloads and massive storage requirements, Avere Edge Filer technology has enjoyed notable success within the media and entertainment industry as evinced by its usage by the visual effects studio Framestore. The ability of Avere Systems to support the massive computational and storage needs of digital media and entertainment-related use cases strongly positions Avere Systems to support the needs of organizations that need to create a compute and storage intensive hybrid cloud infrastructure in collaboration with Google Cloud Platform.
Google Releases Open Source Tool For Cloud Performance Benchmarks And Comparisons
On Wednesday, Google announced the availability of PerfKit Benchmarker, an open source application for benchmarking cloud performance across a variety of cloud infrastructures. PerfKit Benchmarker tackles the notorious difficulty of obtaining metrics about cloud platforms that enable an apples to apple comparison of cloud performance and operational efficacy. PerfKit reports on metrics such as “application throughput, latency, variance and overhead” in addition to data related to the time required to provision resources. Available by means of an Apache License v2, PerfKit Benchmarker is complemented by Perfkit Explorer, a visualization platform that features dashboards and other tools that facilitate rapid comprehension of trends and the business significance of the metrics collected by PerfKit Benchmarker. In a blog post, Google pledged to keep PerfKit current with changes to the evolution of contemporary cloud infrastructures as follows:
PerfKit is a living benchmark framework, designed to evolve as cloud technology changes, always measuring the latest workloads so you can make informed decisions about what’s best for your infrastructure needs. As new design patterns, tools, and providers emerge, we’ll adapt PerfKit to keep it current. It already includes several well-known benchmarks, and covers common cloud workloads that can be executed across multiple cloud providers.
Perfkit currently supports the Google Cloud Platform in addition to Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure according to TechCrunch, . All told, the release of Perfkit Benchmarker constitutes a seminal moment for the cloud computing industry given the dearth of data that enable cross-vendor comparisons, metrics compilation and benchmarking. Despite the availability of platforms such as Cloud Harmony, New Relic and Splunk, few tools in the industry facilitate vendor comparisons by leveraging transparent methodologies and metrics-development practices. The key question regarding PerfKit, however, will be the degree to which its measurement practices indirectly play to the strengths of the Google Cloud Platform (GCP), although presumably the Google Cloud Platform Performance team would know better than to create a benchmarking tool that serves to cast a positive light on GCP. Moreover, Perfkit was developed in collaboration with the likes of CenturyLink, CloudHarmony, Intel, Microsoft, Rackspace and Red Hat which in and of itself suggests the cloud computing space stands poised to leverage Google’s record of innovation and quality in conjunction with “quarterly discussion on default benchmarks and settings proposed by the community” led by Stanford and MIT. Regardless, Perfkit represents an exciting moment for the technology landscape as cloud computing continues to lean in the direction of interoperability, open standards and APIs between proprietary platforms that facilitate workload sharing and an increasingly open ecosystem for application development and data sharing.
Interconnection Company IIX Announces Support For Google Cloud Platform
Interconnection company IIX Inc. today announced the addition of Google Cloud Platform to its infrastructure. As a result of its partnership with the Google Cloud Platform, IIX will offer its customers access to Google Cloud Platform in 20 markets including New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Toronto, London, Sydney, Paris, Amsterdam and Frankfurt via Google Cloud Interconnect. The addition of Google Cloud Platform to IIX’s interconnection ecosystem means that IIX customers can enjoy high performance, low latency connections to the Google Cloud Platform that bypass the public internet. Moreover, IIX customers can now create Google Cloud Platform-based deployments in multiple geographies that benefit from the enhanced security and low latency specific to the dedicated, secure, software-defined connection delivered by IIX. IIX Inc.’s announcement of its support for Google Cloud Platform comes in tandem with the news of its announcement of former Red Hat executive Paul Gampe as CTO. Gampe adds to an impressive roster of executive leadership talent at IIX that includes board member Phil Koen, who was formerly CEO of Savvis and President and COO of Equinix. IIX’s announcement of its support for Google Cloud Platform marks an important moment in its evolution. Expect IIX to add to its roster of major IaaS vendors in upcoming months as the Mountain View-based company attempts to compete with companies such as Equinix, Level 3 Communications, AT&T and Verizon in a steadily exploding space that welcomes new entrants and upstarts given the urgency of enterprise concerns about cloud, network and datacenter security.
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