As the Internet becomes central to human life, the need for capacity and innovation in the networks that connect the world is increasing. Man-invented computers can complete tasks in a matter of seconds that would take decades to do manually. So, how exactly does this happen? In this article, we focus on the Google Compute Engine solution, which takes care of the bulk of the compute capacity needed as cloud technologies expand the possibilities of the internet every day.
Have you considered how many searches are done on Google every day, how many songs are listened to on Spotify, how many tweets are made on Twitter, or how many orders are placed on e-commerce platforms? Have you ever tried to visualize what goes on in the background when you withdraw money from an ATM or pay from your mobile device? Have you ever noticed that when you press the “Send” button for a message, you trigger a virtual computer located anywhere in the world to fulfill your request?
The Internet has become such a big part of our lives that we have become so accustomed to the multitude of conveniences we have accessed, from how our mobile devices or computers, with which we meet many of our needs, are connected to each other, to how the balance we see at the ATM is moved to that screen. When we consider that a short interruption in the services we use affects daily life so deeply, we can imagine the capacity and innovation needed in the background.
As Global IT, Google’s first cloud solution partner in Turkey, in this article, we will focus on Google Compute Engine (GCE), one of the leading infrastructures that allow us to instantly access the service we want from anywhere there is internet.
After briefly touching on the definition of the GCE solution, we will compile the main features of this service and try to convey why businesses prefer this solution. We’ll explain the benefits of Google Compute Engine through a specific industry, starting with e-commerce, and then examine how two world-renowned platforms, Twitter and Spotify, are taking advantage of GCE’s capabilities. But first, to get a closer understanding of the need for capacity, let’s share a few surprising statistics about the Internet:
According to data compiled by Broadband Search , the number of internet users globally has reached 5.25 billion.
• This figure corresponds to 66.2% of the world’s population, while internet usage is estimated to have increased by 1,335% between 2000 and 2022.
• With nearly 2 billion sites online, it is thought that 306 billion emails are sent every day in 2021.
The share of mobile devices in total internet traffic also reaches 54.4% by 2021.
Almost half (45%) of internet users consume an hour or more of video content each day, with 3.5 billion search queries processed on Google every day.
In 2021, global e-commerce sales reached $4.9 trillion.
Yes, the numbers are staggering! Let’s explore one of the powerful solutions that successfully backs these intensive workloads, Google Compute Engine.
What is Google Compute Engine?
Google Compute Engine enables customizable virtual machines running on the Google Cloud platform (Virtual Machine | VM) is the name of the solution in which it is offered. Infrastructure-as-a-service (Infrastructure as a Service | GCE, an IaaS solution, provides a large number of scalable virtual machines to serve as large compute clusters.
This per-use service allows customers to choose the Google Cloud data center where their data will be stored and processed. In other words, according to the data center chosen by the company, all commands in the service offered to the end user are processed on computers in a different part of the world.
To better understand Google Compute Engine, let’s look at how anything we do on the web goes through:
• Let’s consider an e-commerce site. As soon as you try to connect to the website, your personal computer or mobile device sends a query to the remote computer.
• If this query is answered, the website will be loaded and ready to use.
• For example, when you search for a product you want using the search bar, another query is repeated and the results are listed.
• This process is repeated in every transaction you carry out on the site.
• When you come to the payment stage, this time the website you are connected to will contact your bank or payment system and send an inquiry there. If a response is received, your payment is processed and the product is transferred to the e-commerce site’s unit that manages sales requests.
• This team also works on the infrastructure you use and moves for the shipping process of the relevant product from the panel that belongs to them.
When you consider that there are tens or even hundreds of thousands of users using the same website with you, this sequence of actions is repeated hundreds of times every day, every minute, every second. Solutions like Google Compute Engine provide a scalable infrastructure to fully handle these intensive workloads. GCE is identical to renting a virtual computer in a remote location.
Google Compute Engine key features
As a customizable computing service that allows the creation of reliable virtual machines for the enterprise and users, GCE stands out primarily for the following features:
• Predefined machine types: You can get machines in a ready-to-use format by directly selecting machines whose configurations and specifications are predefined by Google based on your business need. The machines, where values such as memory, processing capacity, visual processing potential are pre-designed, include customized solutions that respond to three different needs: general use, performance-oriented use and memory-oriented use.
• Customizable machines: If the predefined virtual machine solutions do not meet your needs, this service allows you to determine which performance characteristics your remote computer will have.
• Usage recommendations: If your workloads aren’t reaching your estimates, Google Compute Engine will migrate you to a less costly VM. This allows you to optimize resource utilization and reduce costs.
• Easy migration, easy installation: If you already have an application running, Google Compute Engine allows you to easily migrate it. If you’re just setting up your application or service, Google Compute Engine makes this process easy as well.
• High performance, low cost and scalability: Ensuring the uninterrupted operation of your service, GCE is developed to handle even the heaviest workloads without difficulty and is scalable to meet needs. Moreover, all this is offered with a service model, creating a cost advantage.
Benefits of Google Compute Engine to e-commerce platforms
GCE offers a suitable solution for every need involving heavy web-based workloads, whether it reaches the end user or not. An e-commerce platform can take advantage of the following features of Google Compute Engine:
• Scalable: As workloads increase, jobs grow, and processes become complex, there is no need for additional costs, software licenses, or hardware. Because Google Compute Engine can scale with the volume of workloads.
Stability: Campaigns or new product announcements can occasionally increase traffic to the website, resulting in connectivity problems with traditional solutions. GCE delivers a seamless platform experience.
Speed: While data shows that two out of 5 users leave the site when the loading time of a page exceeds 3 seconds, every e-commerce business that wants to improve the user experience needs to pay attention to service speed. GCE responds fully to these needs.
• Savings: With no additional software costs or hardware costs, Google Compute Engine works on a pay-as-you-go model.
• Security: All data processed on GCE is stored under the assurance of Google. This is how assurance against cyber attacks is provided.
Who uses Google Compute Engine?
Google’s website for the solution points out that both platforms, such as Spotify and Twitter, which host millions of users and run heavy workloads, use GCE.
In the video published here, Spotify is home to 130 million audio files, and when looking at record values, 8 million transactions per second on the platform and half a trillion transactions in a day. While the correct use of the data from these operations also guides the future of the business, all these heavy workloads are carried out with GCE’s capacity to eliminate complexity and scale.
Dave Beckett, one of Twitter’s top engineers, says that they run workloads that no one else runs, they develop large technologies that require high capacities, they produce remarkable amounts of data every second, and they do it on a platform that needs to be online 24/7. Twitter, which carries up to 400 petabytes of big data to Google Cloud and works with the infrastructure offered by GCE, ensures the perfection of storage and computing needs.
As Global IT, which has been leading businesses in Turkey to move their services to cloud technologies since 2006, we are Google’s first solution partner in Turkey. While we have introduced Google services to more than 500 customers so far, we are working to be the representative of the transformation in cloud technologies in our country. From e-commerce to manufacturing, logistics to software providers, you can contact us through the form at the bottom of this page to meet GCE and other Google solutions across a wide range of industries.