# Google Cloud Platform - 101
## Introduction to Cloud Computing
Let us define what cloud computing means in layman's terms.
It is a system that 5 basic components:
1. On-Demand and self servicable IT resources.
2. World Wide Access
3. Resource Pooling
4. Rapid Elasticity
5. Measured Services for Billing

## How did it all began ?
1. Early 2000's
We saw what can only be explained as IT boom every company that wanted to expand expnded into buying its data center devices and resources. This resulted in companies buying heavily into devices and computers to setup their own data centers and IT Departments.

**PRO's**
* Much Better than the traditional file and paper systems.

**CON's**
* Expensive all round as the devices have to be purchased outright.
* The team shall require a huge outlay of resources as wages.
* No Elasticity so you will need to calculate your requirements exaclty.
* No scope of reduction in times of low demand.
* Inability to remote access.

2. Early 2010's
In the beginings of the last decade we saw a boom of what is refered to as Virtualization. The corporations began to create a central IT Team and give each department access to its own virtual machines. This resulted in them having some elasticity and shift resources more efficiently in times of heavy demand.

**PRO's**
* Better managment of resources.
* Better Elasticity.

**CON's**
* Huge cost overhead due to upfront purchase of devices.
* Required to hire skilled workers for the upkeep of the devices.
* Maintainance of the IT Department is a major part of the industry expense.
3. Current
Late 2010's saw the emergance of a new concept called containers which allowed mega corporations to buid huge datacenters and rent out the resources to other's for their IT needs. Tha data of each renter is stored in a specific location called a container and are kept seperate from each other. This led to the boom in cloud technology and is currently considered to be the future of the computational industry.

**PRO's**
* There is no upfront cost of purchasing hardware. All the billing happens based upon the allocation (IaaS) or usage (Paas).
* All the IT staff is largly hired by the could service provider and hence ther is major reduction in the recritment costs.
* Huge strides in elasticity as the resources may be monitored and billed based on the usage and demand.
* World wide access is gurenteed.
## Common types of Cloud Services
### Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS)
This catagory of cloud computing provides raw access to resources such as:
* Compute
* Network
* Storage

IaaS is usually billed as a Pay what you allocate service.
Examples of Iaas (Infrastructure as a Service) is Amazon Web Services (EC2)

### Platform as a Service (PaaS)
This catagory binds the code written by developers to the infrastructures and libraries that are required by the program.
PaaS is usually billed as a Pay what you use service.
Examples of PaaS (Platform as a Service) are TensorFlow, Apple AppStore, etc.

### Software as a Service (Saas)
This catagory provides access to software that is to be used directly by the end user.
Examles of SaaS (Software as a Service) are Google Search, GSuite, Office 365, etc.

### Managed Services
This is a catagrory of cloud computing provided where the user doesn't have to worry abou tht eresource provisioning at all. It is all automatically managed by the Cloud Service Provider.

## Deployment Google Cloud Platform

There are two important terms to remember when thinking about the deployment of Google Cloud Platform.

Blue - Regions with 3 or more zones
White - Future Regions with 3 or more zones.

### 1. Zones
Zones are deployment areas for GCP resources. They are usually mis interpreted to be single datacenters. But in fact can be a cluster of different buildings. The zones are usually spread out in a region (usually about 160KM's from each other) to provide redundt pathways interms of if one of the zones goes down.
Example: europe-west-2a

### 2. Regions
Zones are generally grouped together into independent geographical locations called regions
Example: Europe