1. Cloud Build Updates: Built on top of Anthos, Cloud Build hybrid pools extends the usability of Cloud Build, Google Cloud’s fully managed CI/CD service Cloud, to other cloud providers or on-prem environments. In addition, the new build provenance and build attestation features make it easier to improve the security of your software supply chain.

 

 

2. GKE #1 – new GKE Autopilot features: The purpose of GKE Autopilot is to simplify running Kubernetes-based applications. It now supports committed use discounts, mutating Kubernetes webhooks, and Pod-level security controls with OPA Gatekeeper. Rewatch the NEXT ’21 session for more information.

 

 

3. CloudRun: The fully managed serverless platform for containerized applications now supports traditional workloads such as applications written in Java Spring Boot, ASP.NET, and Django without building a container first. A new second-generation execution environment provides enhanced network and CPU performance, while discounts and CPU allocation controls enable you to save up to 25% on your compute bill. The Cloud Run/Binary Authorization integration, now GA, helps enforce policy-based deployment of CloudRun services. Knative, the open source project behind CloudRun hits the 1.0 release. That’s an important milestone for the project that can count on the support from more than 600 active developers.

 

 

4. Cloud Armor: Google Cloud’s DDoS protection and WAF service has some cool updates: 

– Preview of a new Bot Management capability that integrates Cloud Armor and reCAPTCHA Enterprise. 

– Per-client rate limiting with two types of rate-based rules (Preview): throttle and rate-based ban.

– Edge security policies (Preview) allow you to configure filtering and access control policies for content that is stored in cache for Cloud CDN and Cloud Storage.

– Adaptive Protection, the ML-based, application-layer DDoS detection and WAF protection mechanism, is now GA.

 

 

5. Network Connectivity: There are plenty of options for connecting your on-premises network or another cloud provider to Google’s network. Check out Priyanka Vergadia’s great overview. And don’t miss CDN Interconnect which allows you to connect your favorite CDN-Provider (Akamai, CloudFlare or others in case you don’t want to rely on Cloud CDN) with the Google Cloud Edge Network. And if you still have not enough, Priyanka also provides a general overview on Google Cloud Networking.

 

 

6. Cloud Functions Best Practices: You can think of Cloud Functions like the workers in the background that are often overlooked, but without them, nothing would really work. Here’s a great series of blog posts including guidance on how to use Cloud Functions in the best way possible. Parts 1, 2, 3 of “Avoiding GCF anti-patterns” are already available.

 

 

7. GKE #2 – GKE image streaming: This new GKE feature “has the potential to drastically improve your application scale-up time, allowing you to respond to increased user demand more rapidly, and save money by provisioning less spare capacity”. Read on here for more information.

 

 

8. Compliance: New certifications in the US (FedRAMP High, Department of Defense Impact Level 4) underscore that Google Cloud is one of the most secure and trusted places in the world for your data, in particular for the public sector.

 

 

9. Service Directory: Are you looking for a fully managed platform for discovering, publishing, and connecting services (gRPC, HTTP or DNS), regardless of the environment? Then you should check out another cheat sheet by Priyanka Vergadia.

 

 

10. Cloud Security: The monthly must-read when it comes to cloud- and cyber security – “Cloud CISO Perspectives: October 2021” by Phil Venables, CISO of Google Cloud.

 

 

11. BigQuery: You will find tips&tricks on how to backup your BigQuery data in this blog post.

 

 

12. Spot VMs: In short, Spot VMs are the newest version of Preemptible VMs. You find more information on Spot VMs here. Please note that “Preemptible VMs continue to be supported for new and existing VMs, and Preemptible VMs now use the same pricing model as Spot VMs”.

 

 

13. Open Data Lakehouse: You probably already know data warehouses, data lakes and data marts. Combining key benefits of data lakes and data warehouses, there is now also a data lakehouse. This article and the related Whitepaper let you discover if it’s interesting for your company and provide more information on how to build it.

 

 

14. Cloud Domains: “Cloud Domains allows you to manage access controls for domains through Cloud IAM and manage your domain registrations and renewals through Cloud Billing, for a more seamless experience with the rest of Google Cloud”. It’s now finally GA.

 

 

15. FinOps: After DevOps & GitOps to improve operations in the cloud and DevSecOps to improve security, we now also have FinOps to “drive financial accountability and accelerate business value realization”. Here’s a good introduction plus a whitepaper.

 

 

16. Data Ingestion: Regardless of the data architecture you choose, you’ll end up dealing with data ingestion at some point. Learn more on the principles you should follow.

 

 

17. Serverless Spark: “Apache Spark has become a popular platform as it can serve all of data engineering, data exploration, and machine learning use cases”. That’s why it’s great to see that Google Cloud has built “industry’s first autoscaling serverless Spark, seamlessly integrated with the best of Google Cloud and open source tools, so you can effortlessly power ETL, data science, and data analytics use cases at scale”. Read on here.

 

 

18. Automatic Data Loss Prevention: In case you use BigQuer and host personally identifiable information (PII) or other sensitive data, this one is for you: Automatic Data Loss Prevention in BiqQuery, now  available in Preview.

 

 

19. Dataflow Pipelines: Dataflow is a popular solution with Data Engineers covering a wide variety of use cases. The new Dataflow Pipelines “address the problem of managing Dataflow jobs at scale”. Learn more in this article.

 

 

20. Load Balancing: Don’t miss this Medium article for a technical deep dive on Google Cloud Load Balancing.

 

 

21. Cloud Native DevOps: There is a nice series of articles on DevOps published on Medium. Check out parts 1, 2 and 3 and bookmark the post for upcoming content.

 

 

22. Terraform: At Wabion, we use terraform as our preferred IaC-framework in nearly every customer project. Learn more about how to address challenges you may encounter when using terraform more heavily and your codebase is growing fast.

 

 

 

 

Jörn