How to Build Solutions on Google Cloud Platform
Learn how to use Google Cloud Platform products, services, and other features to build end-to-end solutions.
Mobile Applications
Last updated December 17, 2015.
Build backend services for mobile apps
Updated December 2015
Select one of several recommended design patterns that use Firebase and Cloud Platform services, view sample code that implements the pattern, and learn how to manage communication between your app and your backend services, including push notifications.
Use Firebase and Google App Engine in an Android App
Published September 2015
Build a mobile app that stores data in Firebase. Then add backend logic running on App Engine. By connecting App Engine to a Firebase database, you can perform complex logic on data without having to manage synchronization and updates; Firebase handles that for you.
How to build a mobile app with an App Engine backend
Updated June 2015
Learn how to develop a mobile application powered by Cloud Platform. This sample application includes an Android client and an App Engine backend.
Developing mobile games on Google Cloud Platform
Updated June 2015
This document is intended for architects and developers interested in building their own mobile game backends and designing the interaction patterns between mobile clients and the backend.
Image management for mobile apps using gRPC
Published July 2015
Learn how to use gRPC and protocol buffers to connect a mobile app running on a variety of devices (Android and iOS) to backend services to create an end-to-end photo-sharing app.
Also check out the Computing and Hosting tutorials.
Websites & Web Apps
Building Scalable and Resilient Web Applications
Updated June 2015
Learn how to use Cloud Platform to build scalable and resilient application architectures using patterns and practices that apply broadly to any web application.
AngularJS + Cloud Endpoints -- A Recipe for Building Modern Web Applications
Updated May 2015
This paper provides best practices and guidance to web developers who are interested in AngularJS or other client-side MVC technologies and want to optimize their server backend for these technologies.
Introduction to MongoDB on Google Compute Engine
Updated March 2015
The goal of this paper is to help you bring your MongoDB deployment to Google Compute Engine and take advantage of both the flexibility of Compute Engine's virtual environment, as well as the price-for-performance of Compute Engine Persistent Disks.
PostgreSQL on Compute Engine
June 2015
Learn how to set up PostgreSQL on Google Compute Enginein just a few minutes.
For better performance and data safety, you can install the PostgreSQL database engine on the boot disk and then set up the data storage on a separate persistent disk. How to Set up a PostgreSQL DataDisk shows you how to move the database to a new persistent disk on Cloud Platform.
After you've set up a single instance of PostgresSQL, learn how to run in Hot Standby mode to provide archiving and replication.
Internal Load Balancing using HAProxy on Google Compute Engine
August 2015
Learn how to create an internal load balancer on Google Compute Engine. You can use Compute Engine to create your own internal load balancer by using a software load balancer. This solution discusses the installation and configuration of HAProxy, an open source software load balancer, on a Compute Engine instance.
How to Set Up MySQL on Google Compute Engine
August 2015
Learn how to set up MySQL on Google Compute Engine. You have several options for deploying MySQL as part of your Google Cloud Platform project. You can use Google Cloud SQL, Google Cloud Launcher, or manually install MySQL on Google Compute Engine. This document provides guidance on which option to choose and walks through the manual installation of a MySQL database on Compute Engine.
How to Set Up Remote Access to MySQL on Google Compute Engine
September 2015
One of the key use cases for installing MySQL on Google Compute Engine as an alternative to Google Cloud SQL is to keep your MySQL server and client applications on a private network. To run your MySQL server and client on a private network, use Compute Engine VM instances for both the server and the client. This document describes how to configure your MySQL Server application to accept remote traffic from a MySQL Client that is installed on a Compute Engine VM on the same private network.
Also check out the Computing and Hosting tutorials.
Retail & Commerce
Digital Media Asset Management And Sharing
Updated May 2015
An example scenario provides a technical deep-dive on how to use Cloud Platform to build a digital media asset management and sharing system.
Development & Test
Automated Image Builds with Jenkins, Packer, and Kubernetes
Updated June 2015
Creating custom images to boot your Google Compute Engine instances or Docker containers can reduce boot time and increase reliability.
Continuous Delivery with Travis CI
September 2015
It's easy to run integration tests by using a continuous integration service on Google Cloud Platform to deploy your app as part of the build process. This solution demonstrates how Travis CI can deploy and run end-to-end tests on a staging environment.
Using Google Cloud Storage for Cassandra Disaster Recovery
Updated June 2015
Learn how to add basic disaster recovery to your Cassandra installation by backing up your data into, and restoring your data from, Google Cloud Storage.
How to Design a Disaster Recovery Plan
June 2015
General principles for designing and testing a disaster recovery plan with Cloud Platform.
Disaster Recovery Cookbook
June 2015
Guidance for handling a variety of disaster recovery scenarios using Google's cloud infrastructure.
Deploying Microservices on Google App Engine
July 2015
An application that has been decomposed into a set of microservices that have strong, consistent contracts between them can greatly help you scale your application and your development processes. This article explores the microservices architectural style and provides detailed discussion about how to use App Engine as a platform for microservices-based apps.
Distributed Load Testing Using Kubernetes
June 2015
How to use Container Engine to deploy a distributed load testing framework.
Compute Engine Management with Puppet, Chef, Salt, and Ansible
Updated May 2015
Learn how to deploy and optimize computing systems on Google Compute Engine. This paper aims to help you understand resource deployment on Google Compute Engine, and how you can use the software management tools discussed to manage your compute infrastructure.
Building Scalable and Resilient Web Applications
Updated June 2015
Learn how to use Cloud Platform to build scalable and resilient application architectures using patterns and practices that apply broadly to any web application.
Wix Media Platform
November 2014
Wix Media Platform is a collection of services for storing, serving, uploading, and managing image, audio, and video files.
Reliable Task Scheduling on Google Compute Engine
Updated June 2015
Run scheduled tasks reliably across a fleet of Google Compute Engine instances using the Google App Engine Cron service and Google Cloud Pub/Sub.
Big Data
Real-time data analysis with Kubernetes, Redis, and BigQuery
Updated October 2015
Perform real-time data analysis of Twitter data using a pipeline built on Google Compute Engine, Kubernetes, Redis, and BigQuery.
Real-time logs analysis using Fluentd and BigQuery
January 2015
Log browser traffic to a nginx web server using Fluentd, query the logged data by using BigQuery, and then visualize the results.
Real-time data analysis with Kubernetes, Google Cloud Pub/Sub, and BigQuery
Updated October 2015
Perform real-time data analysis of Twitter data using a pipeline built on Google Compute Engine, Kubernetes, Cloud Pub/Sub, and BigQuery.
Processing Logs at Scale using Cloud Dataflow
November 2015
Use Cloud Dataflow to build analytical pipelines that process log entries from multiple sources. This solution generates log data from microservices that run on Google Container Engine. You will combine the log data in ways that help you extract meaningful information and use BigQuery to persist insights derived from the data, which can be used for analysis, review, and reporting.
Real-Time Bidder Solution for Google Cloud Platform
Updated June 2015
Real-time bidding (RTB) is a server-to-server integration option for network ad buyers that allows networks to evaluate and bid on an impression by impression basis. This paper presents a pair of solutions that can be used as references for building and deploying multi-region, real-time bidders on Cloud Platform.
Netflix Lipstick on Google Compute Engine
Updated May 2015
Netflix Lipstick provides a web-based graphical interface for visualizing data processing jobs launched by Apache Pig. This document contains instructions for building Lipstick on a Google Compute Engine instance and deploying it on a Hadoop cluster running on Google Compute Engine.
Google Analytics Premium + Google BigQuery for Predictive Digital Marketing
July 2015
Google Analytics Premium, the full featured website traffic analytics tool, has been integrated with BigQuery. That means you can have full-resolution Google Analytics logs automatically imported to your BigQuery project several times per day.
Also check out the BigQuery tutorials.
Financial Services
Analyzing Financial Time Series using BigQuery
February 2015
Perform time-series analysis of historical spot-market data with BigQuery and visualize the results.
Monte Carlo Methods using Google Cloud Platform and Apache Spark
March 2015
Cloud Platform and Apache Spark provide infrastructure and capacity that you can use to run Monte Carlo simulations. Monte Carlo methods can help answer a wide range of questions in business, engineering, science, mathematics, and other fields. For example, financial planners use Monte Carlo methods to predict how an investment in the stock market might perform. Learn to use Python and Scala to define Monte Carlo simulations and then run them across clusters of servers that scale on demand.
Cloud Bigtable Schema Design for Time Series Data
April 2015
This guide takes you into the depths of schema design for Cloud Bigtable, with a walk through of designing tables using time-series financial market data. Take this and use the patterns and lessons to design your systems so that you can reap the biggest benefit from this technology for your use cases and workloads.
Gaming
Game Server Reference Architecture with App Engine and Compute Engine
Updated December 2015
This solution demonstrates how developers can scale their online game to support millions of players while providing a full-featured gaming experience.
Setting up a Minecraft server on Google Compute Engine
March 2015
Set up a standard Minecraft server on a Google Compute Engine virtual machine instance.
Real-time Gaming with Node.js + WebSocket on Google Cloud Platform
Updated June 2015
In this paper, we walk through World Wide Maze, a game that has solved these challenges by utilizing Cloud Platform and cutting-edge web technologies.
Architecture
Architecture: Web Application on Google App Engine
November 2014
Developers leverage Google App Engine to simplify development and deployment of Web Applications. These applications use the autoscaling compute power of App Engine as well as the integrated features like distributed in-memory cache, task queues and datastore, to create robust applications quickly and easily.
Architecture: Real Time Bidding
November 2014
Real Time Bidders use Cloud Platform to intelligently market products through the real time placement of ads to targeted users. This architecture consists of systems to create the campaign, set bidding parameters, place the bids, serve ads, store the results, tune the campaign and analyze the success of the campaign.
Architecture: Digital Asset Management and Sharing
November 2014
Applications and services to create and distribute audio and video files can be created from the compute, storage and queuing mechanisms provide by Cloud Platform.
Architecture: Mobile Apps and Games
December 2015
Cloud Platform is a robust platform for building backend services for mobile apps and games. In additon to the automatic, real-time, data synchronization of Firebase, Cloud Platform provides compute, messaging, storage, and security features for Android and iOS devices.
Architecture: Content Management
November 2014
Content Management systems manage and deliver electronic content to a target audience. The content may be web information, marketing campaigns or social media content. The content may also be personalized for individual users or groups.
Architecture: Real Time Stream Processing - Internet of Things
November 2014
Google Cloud Platform provides the infrastructure to handle streams of data fed from millions of intelligent devices. The architecture for this type of real time stream processing must deal with ingest, processing, storage and analysis of hundreds of millions of events per hour.
Architecture: Hadoop on Google Cloud Platform
November 2014
Google Cloud Platform provides the infrastructure to perform MapReduce data analysis using open source software such as Hadoop with Hive and Pig. Google Compute Engine provides the compute power and Cloud Storage is used to store the input and output of the MapReduce jobs.
Architecture: High Performance Computing
November 2014
High Performance Computing clusters can be created on Cloud Platform by utilizing Google Compute Engine VMs and Google Cloud Storage. By running HPC workloads in Google's cloud, customers can augment on-premise HPC clusters or run all their jobs in the cloud.
Try out other Google Cloud Platform features for yourself. Have a look at our tutorials.