Learn Google Cloud Platform
from the beginning

What Google Cloud is, simply explained

Google Cloud Platform is a set of computing services that run on the same global infrastructure Google uses for Search, Gmail, and YouTube. Instead of buying and managing physical servers, you rent compute, storage, and networking from Google and pay only for what you use.

For developers and engineers, GCP means you can deploy an application globally in minutes, scale it automatically with traffic, and discard the infrastructure when you no longer need it. GCP is particularly strong for containerised workloads, data engineering, and machine learning. Start with What is Google Cloud Platform if you are new to cloud.

GCP Learning Path

246 pages covering GCP fundamentals, IAM security, compute, Kubernetes, storage, networking, DevOps, monitoring, data analytics, and architecture best practices. The most important pages from each section are shown below.

Cloud Fundamentals

IAM & Security

Compute Services

Containers & Kubernetes

Storage Services

Networking

DevOps & CI/CD

Monitoring & Observability

Analytics & Data

Architecture & Best Practices

GCP Troubleshooting

Cost Management & FinOps

Common GCP beginner mistakes

Using default service accounts for everything

GCP creates a default service account for each project with broad permissions. Using it for production workloads violates least privilege. Read principle of least privilege and create dedicated service accounts per workload.

Creating service account keys when you do not need them

Service account keys are long-lived credentials that can be leaked. For most GCP workloads, you can use Workload Identity instead. Read why service account keys are dangerous.

Leaving Cloud APIs disabled and not understanding why

Most GCP services require their API to be enabled before use. Forgetting this causes confusing errors. See API not enabled errors.

Confusing projects, folders, and the organisation hierarchy

In GCP, resources live in projects, projects live in folders, and folders live under an organisation. Permissions granted at a higher level cascade down. Read GCP resource hierarchy.

Not setting billing alerts

GCP does not cap spending automatically. Without billing budgets and alerts you can incur unexpected costs. Read setting billing budgets and alerts.

GCP vs AWS vs Azure

All three providers offer the same core capabilities. The differences worth knowing as a beginner are in tooling, ecosystem, and where each is most widely adopted.

Where GCP stands out

GCP leads in data analytics (BigQuery is a best-in-class serverless data warehouse), Kubernetes (Google invented it and GKE is the reference managed service), and networking (Google's global fibre network is a genuine advantage). It also has competitive pricing for sustained-use compute workloads.

Where AWS and Azure are stronger

AWS has the broadest service catalogue and the largest job market globally. Azure dominates enterprise accounts, the UK public sector, and organisations using Microsoft 365. If breadth of job opportunities is your primary goal, AWS has the largest market share. If you are targeting enterprise IT roles, Azure is often the dominant provider.

Explore the AWS section, the Azure section, and GCP comparisons for more detail.