Google Cloud Professional Cloud

Developer Certification Cheatsheet

This cheatsheet provides a concise summary of key concepts, services, and best
practices relevant for the Google Cloud Professional Cloud Developer Certification
exam. It is designed to help developers quickly review and reinforce their knowledge
across the various exam domains.

Exam Overview

The Google Cloud Professional Cloud Developer exam assesses your ability to design,
build, and deploy applications on Google Cloud Platform. It covers topics such as
application development, deployment, debugging, monitoring, and security.

Exam Guide Summary

The Google Cloud Professional Cloud Developer exam assesses your ability to design,
build, and deploy scalable, secure, and highly available applications using Google-
recommended tools and best practices. It covers a wide range of topics, including
cloud-native applications, Google Cloud APIs, developer and AI tools, managed
services, orchestration tools, serverless platforms, containerized applications, test and
deployment strategies, problem determination and resolution, and datastores.
Candidates are expected to be proficient in at least one general-purpose programming
language and capable of instrumenting their code for metrics, logs, and traces.

Exam Sections:

Section 1: Designing highly scalable, available, and reliable cloud-

native applications (~36% of the exam)

This section focuses on the architectural considerations for building robust

applications on Google Cloud. Key areas include:
 Designing high-performing applications and APIs: This involves selecting
appropriate platforms (e.g., Compute Engine, GKE, Cloud Run), building and
deploying application containers, understanding geographical distribution of
Google Cloud services (latency, regional/zonal services), configuring load
balancers for session affinity and performant content delivery, implementing
caching solutions (e.g., Memorystore), creating and deploying APIs (HTTP REST,
gRPC), using application rate limiting, authentication, and observability (e.g.,
Apigee, Cloud API Gateway), integrating applications using asynchronous or
event-driven approaches (e.g., Eventarc, Pub/Sub), and optimizing for cost and
resource usage.

Designing secure applications: This covers implementing authentication and

authorization (e.g., Cloud IAM, Identity Platform, OAuth, API keys, signed URLs),
securing network communications (e.g., VPC Service Controls, Shared VPC,
Private Google Access, firewall rules, mTLS), securing data (e.g., Cloud KMS,
CMEK, CSEK, Cloud Storage security, Cloud SQL security), and implementing
security best practices (e.g., least privilege, security by design, defense in depth).

Designing for reliability and resilience: This includes implementing fault

tolerance (e.g., retries, backoffs, circuit breakers), designing for disaster recovery
(e.g., multi-region deployments, backup and restore), implementing health
checks and auto-healing, and designing for graceful degradation.

Designing for operability: This involves implementing logging, monitoring, and

alerting (e.g., Cloud Logging, Cloud Monitoring, Cloud Trace, Cloud Debugger),
implementing tracing and profiling, designing for continuous delivery and
continuous integration (CI/CD) (e.g., Cloud Build, Cloud Deploy, Cloud Source
Repositories), and designing for automated testing (e.g., unit, integration, end-to-
end testing).

Section 2: Building and testing applications (~24% of the exam)

This section covers the practical aspects of developing and testing applications on
Google Cloud.

Building applications: This includes writing application code using Google

Cloud client libraries, REST APIs, or gRPC APIs, implementing data storage
solutions (e.g., Cloud SQL, Cloud Spanner, Cloud Firestore, Cloud Bigtable, Cloud
Storage), implementing messaging solutions (e.g., Cloud Pub/Sub, Cloud Tasks),
 implementing serverless solutions (e.g., Cloud Functions, Cloud Run, App
Engine), implementing containerized solutions (e.g., GKE, Cloud Run), and
implementing background processing (e.g., Cloud Tasks, Cloud Functions,
Compute Engine).

Testing applications: This involves writing unit, integration, and end-to-end

tests, using testing frameworks and tools, implementing mock objects and test
doubles, performing load testing and stress testing, and debugging and
troubleshooting applications.

Section 3: Deploying applications (~18% of the exam)

This section focuses on the deployment process and infrastructure management.

Deploying applications: This covers deploying to various Google Cloud

platforms (e.g., Compute Engine, GKE, Cloud Run, App Engine, Cloud Functions),
managing application versions and rollbacks, configuring network settings for
deployed applications (e.g., firewall rules, load balancers, DNS), and managing
application secrets and configurations (e.g., Secret Manager, environment
variables).

Managing application infrastructure: This includes using Infrastructure as Code

(IaC) (e.g., Deployment Manager, Terraform), managing resources with Cloud
Resource Manager, and automating infrastructure provisioning and
management.

Section 4: Integrating Google Cloud services (~12% of the exam)

This section deals with integrating different Google Cloud services within an
application.

Integrating with Google Cloud APIs: This involves using client libraries and
REST APIs, handling API authentication and authorization, and managing API
quotas and rate limits.

Integrating with data storage solutions: This covers connecting to Cloud SQL,
Cloud Spanner, Cloud Firestore, Cloud Bigtable, Cloud Storage, and performing
data migrations.
 Integrating with messaging and eventing solutions: This includes using Cloud
Pub/Sub for asynchronous communication and using Eventarc for event-driven
architectures.

Section 5: Managing application performance and monitoring (~10%

of the exam)

This section focuses on ensuring application performance and effective monitoring.

Monitoring and logging applications: This involves using Cloud Monitoring for
metrics and dashboards, using Cloud Logging for centralized logging, and setting
up alerts and notifications.

Debugging and troubleshooting applications: This includes using Cloud Trace

for distributed tracing, using Cloud Debugger for live debugging, and analyzing
logs and metrics to identify issues.

Optimizing application performance: This covers identifying performance

bottlenecks, optimizing resource usage (e.g., CPU, memory, disk, network),
implementing caching strategies, and using content delivery networks (CDNs).

Section 6: Managing application security (~8% of the exam)

This section emphasizes security considerations for applications.

Implementing security controls: This includes managing IAM roles and

permissions, configuring network security (e.g., firewall rules, VPC Service
Controls), and protecting data at rest and in transit.

Responding to security incidents: This covers using Cloud Security Command

Center and implementing incident response procedures.

Implementing compliance requirements: This involves understanding the

shared responsibility model and adhering to industry standards and regulations.

Core Google Cloud Platform Services

This section provides an overview of essential Google Cloud Platform services

frequently used by developers.
Compute Services

Compute Engine

Compute Engine is Google Cloud's Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) offering, providing

virtual machine (VM) instances that give you granular control over your computing
infrastructure. It's suitable for workloads requiring custom operating systems, specific
hardware configurations, or direct access to the underlying infrastructure.

Key Aspects: * Virtual Machines (VMs): Offers a wide range of predefined and custom
machine types, including general-purpose, compute-optimized, memory-optimized,
and accelerator-optimized instances. * Operating Systems: Supports various Linux
and Windows operating systems, with options for premium images and custom image
imports. * Storage: Provides local SSDs for high-performance temporary storage and
durable options like Hyperdisk and Persistent Disk for persistent block storage. *
Networking: Integrates with Cloud VPC for network configuration, including firewall
rules, IP addresses, and network interfaces. * Management: VMs can be managed via
the Google Cloud console, Google Cloud CLI, or REST-based API. * Use Cases: Custom
application hosting, high-performance computing (HPC), batch processing, and lift-
and-shift migrations of on-premises applications.

App Engine

App Engine is a fully managed Platform as a Service (PaaS) for developing and hosting
web applications and mobile backends. It abstracts away infrastructure management,
allowing developers to focus solely on writing code. App Engine supports multiple
programming languages and automatically scales applications to handle varying
traffic loads.

Key Aspects: * Serverless: Google manages the underlying infrastructure, including

servers, operating systems, and runtime environments. * Automatic Scaling:
Automatically scales application instances up and down in response to traffic,
optimizing for performance and cost. * Versions and Services: Applications are
composed of services, which can have multiple versions, enabling easy A/B testing,
traffic splitting, and rollbacks. * Environments: Offers Standard and Flexible
environments, providing different levels of control and language support. * Use Cases:
Web applications, mobile backends, APIs, and microservices that benefit from
automatic scaling and reduced operational overhead.
Cloud Functions

Cloud Functions is a serverless, event-driven Function as a Service (FaaS) that allows

you to run small, single-purpose functions in response to events without managing
any servers. It's ideal for connecting and extending cloud services.

Key Aspects: * Event-Driven: Functions are triggered by events from Google Cloud
services (e.g., Cloud Storage uploads, Pub/Sub messages), Firebase, or HTTP requests.
* Serverless: Fully managed, pay-per-use model where you only pay for the compute
time your function executes. * Scalable: Automatically scales to handle incoming
events. * Versions: Cloud Functions (1st gen) and Cloud Functions (2nd gen), with the
latter built on Cloud Run for enhanced capabilities like longer request times and
higher concurrency. * Use Cases: Real-time data processing, chatbots, IoT backends,
webhooks, and lightweight APIs.

Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE)

Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE) is a managed service for deploying, managing, and
scaling containerized applications using Kubernetes. It provides a robust environment
for running microservices and complex applications, abstracting away much of the
complexity of Kubernetes cluster management.

Key Aspects: * Managed Kubernetes: Google manages the Kubernetes control plane,
including upgrades, patching, and scaling. * Container Orchestration: Automates the
deployment, scaling, and management of containerized applications. * Modes of
Operation: Offers Autopilot mode (fully managed, workload-focused, cost-optimized)
and Standard mode (more control over node management). * Integration: Seamlessly
integrates with other Google Cloud services for CI/CD, monitoring, logging, and
security. * Use Cases: Microservices architectures, containerized applications, batch
processing, and machine learning workloads.

Storage and Database Services

Cloud Storage

Cloud Storage is a highly scalable and durable object storage service for unstructured
data. It's designed for storing and accessing any type of data, from images and videos
to backups and archives.
Key Aspects: * Object Storage: Data is stored as objects within buckets. Objects are
immutable, meaning they cannot be changed after creation. * Scalability: Offers
virtually limitless storage capacity. * Durability: Designed for 99.999999999% (11
nines) annual durability. * Storage Classes: Provides various storage classes
(Standard, Nearline, Coldline, Archive) to optimize for cost and access frequency. *
Security: Integrates with Cloud IAM for access control, supports data encryption at
rest and in transit, and offers features like Bucket Lock and Object Versioning. * Use
Cases: Content distribution, data archiving, disaster recovery, big data analytics, and
serving static website content.

Cloud SQL

Cloud SQL is a fully managed relational database service for MySQL, PostgreSQL, and
SQL Server. It automates database administration tasks such as patching, backups,
replication, and high availability, allowing developers to focus on application
development.

Key Aspects: * Managed Relational Database: Supports popular relational database

engines. * High Availability: Provides options for automatic failover and replication
for high availability. * Scalability: Easily scale CPU, memory, and storage resources. *
Connectivity: Supports public and private IP connectivity, with secure access options
like Cloud SQL Auth Proxy. * Use Cases: Web applications, business intelligence, CRM
systems, and any application requiring a managed relational database.

Cloud Datastore (Firestore in Datastore mode)

Cloud Datastore is a highly scalable NoSQL document database built for automatic
scaling, high performance, and ease of application development. It's ideal for
applications requiring structured data that can scale to large volumes.

Key Aspects: * NoSQL Document Database: Stores data in documents organized into
collections. * Automatic Scaling: Scales automatically to handle large datasets and
high traffic. * ACID Transactions: Supports atomic, consistent, isolated, and durable
transactions. * Flexible Data Model: Schemaless design allows for flexible data
structures. * Strong Consistency: All queries are strongly consistent. * Use Cases:
User profiles, product catalogs, game states, and other applications requiring a
flexible, scalable NoSQL database.
Cloud Bigtable

Cloud Bigtable is a fully managed, scalable NoSQL wide-column database service

designed for large analytical and operational workloads. It's optimized for high read
and write throughput at low latency, making it suitable for massive datasets.

Key Aspects: * NoSQL Wide-Column Database: Stores data in tables with billions of
rows and thousands of columns. * Massive Scalability: Scales linearly with the
number of nodes in the cluster. * High Throughput, Low Latency: Ideal for time-
series data, financial data, and IoT data. * Integration: Integrates with the Apache
ecosystem (HBase API compatible) and Google Cloud services like Dataflow and
Dataproc. * Use Cases: Ad personalization, financial data analysis, IoT data processing,
and operational analytics.

Cloud Spanner

Cloud Spanner is a unique, fully managed, mission-critical relational database service

that offers transactional consistency at global scale. It combines the benefits of
relational databases (schemas, SQL) with the horizontal scalability of NoSQL
databases.

Key Aspects: * Globally Distributed Relational Database: Provides strong

transactional consistency across globally distributed data. * High Availability: Offers
industry-leading availability SLAs. * SQL Interface: Supports standard SQL queries. *
Automatic Sharding: Automatically shards data across servers to optimize
performance and scalability. * TrueTime: Google's distributed clock technology
ensures strong consistency across regions. * Use Cases: Global financial transactions,
supply chain management, gaming, and other applications requiring a highly
consistent, globally scalable relational database.

Messaging and API Management Services

Cloud Pub/Sub

Cloud Pub/Sub is an asynchronous and scalable messaging service that decouples

services producing messages (publishers) from services processing those messages
(subscribers). It enables flexible and robust communication between distributed
systems.
Key Aspects: * Asynchronous Communication: Facilitates event-driven architectures
and microservices communication. * Publish/Subscribe Model: Publishers send
messages to topics, and subscribers receive messages from subscriptions. *
Scalability and Reliability: Handles large volumes of messages with low latency and
high reliability. * Global Reach: Available across Google Cloud regions. * Use Cases:
Ingesting real-time data streams, event-driven processing, fan-out messaging, and
inter-service communication.

Cloud Tasks

Cloud Tasks is a fully managed service that allows you to manage the execution,
dispatch, and delivery of a large number of distributed tasks. It's used for
asynchronous work outside of a user request, providing guaranteed delivery and
configurable retries.

Key Aspects: * Asynchronous Execution: Offloads long-running or background tasks

from user-facing requests. * Guaranteed Delivery: Ensures tasks are delivered and
executed reliably. * Rate Limiting and Retries: Configurable settings for controlling
task execution. * Target Flexibility: Tasks can be delivered to App Engine targets or
any HTTP endpoint. * Use Cases: Sending emails, generating reports, processing
images, and other background jobs.

Cloud Endpoints

Cloud Endpoints is a distributed API management system that helps you develop,
deploy, and manage APIs on Google Cloud. It provides tools for hosting, logging,
monitoring, and securing your APIs.

Key Aspects: * API Management: Provides a platform for managing the API lifecycle. *
Integration: Works with various Google Cloud backends (App Engine, Compute
Engine, GKE, Cloud Functions, Cloud Run). * Security: Offers features for
authentication, authorization, and API key management. * Observability: Integrates
with Cloud Logging and Cloud Monitoring for API observability. * API Definition:
Supports OpenAPI Specification and gRPC for API definition. * Use Cases: Exposing
backend services as APIs, managing access to internal and external APIs, and
implementing API security and rate limiting.
Apigee

Apigee is Google Cloud's native API management platform for building, managing, and
securing APIs at enterprise scale. It provides a comprehensive set of features for API
proxying, security, traffic management, analytics, and developer engagement.

Key Aspects: * API Proxy Layer: Sits between backend services and clients, offering
granular control over API traffic. * Policy-Driven: Uses policies for security, rate
limiting, transformation, and mediation. * Hybrid/Multicloud: Supports deploying
APIs across various environments, including on-premises and other clouds. *
Developer Portals: Facilitates developer onboarding and API consumption through
customizable portals. * Advanced Analytics: Provides detailed insights into API usage,
performance, and errors. * Use Cases: Exposing legacy systems as APIs, building new
digital products, monetizing APIs, and securing API ecosystems.

Monitoring, Logging, and Debugging Services

Cloud Monitoring

Cloud Monitoring provides visibility into the performance, uptime, and overall health
of your cloud-powered applications and infrastructure. It collects metrics, events, and
metadata from Google Cloud services and other sources.

Key Aspects: * Metrics Collection: Automatically collects metrics from Google Cloud
services, with options for custom metrics and integration with Prometheus. *
Dashboards: Provides pre-built and custom dashboards for data visualization. *
Alerting: Configurable alerting policies with various notification channels. * SLO
Monitoring: Supports defining and monitoring Service-Level Objectives. * Uptime
Monitoring: Monitors the availability of URLs, VMs, and APIs. * Use Cases:
Performance monitoring, capacity planning, incident detection, and root cause
analysis.

Cloud Logging

Cloud Logging is a real-time log management system for collecting, storing, analyzing,
and monitoring log data from Google Cloud resources, applications, and other
sources.

Key Aspects: * Centralized Log Management: Aggregates logs from various sources
into a single platform. * Log Exploration: Provides Logs Explorer for viewing and
filtering log entries, and Log Analytics for SQL-based querying. * Log Routing: Allows
routing logs to different destinations for storage or further analysis. * Log-based
Metrics: Create custom metrics based on log patterns for monitoring and alerting. *
Use Cases: Troubleshooting, security auditing, compliance, and operational insights.

Cloud Trace

Cloud Trace is a distributed tracing system that collects latency data from applications
and displays it in near real-time. It helps developers understand how requests
propagate through their distributed systems and identify performance bottlenecks.

Key Aspects: * Distributed Tracing: Visualizes the end-to-end flow of requests across
microservices. * Latency Analysis: Identifies performance bottlenecks and slow
operations. * Integration: Automatically collects trace data from App Engine and can
be integrated with other services and custom applications. * Use Cases: Performance
optimization, debugging distributed applications, and understanding service
dependencies.

Cloud Debugger (Snapshot Debugger)

Cloud Debugger (now primarily referred to as Snapshot Debugger) allows you to

inspect the state of a running cloud application at any code location without stopping
or slowing it down. It's designed for live debugging in production environments with
minimal impact.

Key Aspects: * Non-breaking Debugging: Captures snapshots of application state

without interrupting live traffic. * Live Production Debugging: Safely debug issues in
production environments. * Minimal Latency Impact: Adds negligible latency when
capturing snapshots. * Use Cases: Troubleshooting production issues, understanding
complex code paths, and verifying bug fixes in live environments.

Security and Networking Services

Cloud IAM (Identity and Access Management)

Cloud IAM is Google Cloud's system for managing fine-grained authorization, allowing
you to control who can do what on which resources within your Google Cloud
environment. It's fundamental for implementing the principle of least privilege.
Key Aspects: * Principals: Users, service accounts, Google Groups, and domains that
can be granted access. * Roles: Collections of permissions that define what actions a
principal can perform. Includes predefined roles, custom roles, and basic roles. *
Resources: Google Cloud entities (projects, folders, organizations, VMs, buckets, etc.)
on which roles are granted. * Policy Inheritance: Policies set at higher levels (e.g.,
organization) are inherited by lower-level resources (e.g., projects, VMs). * Use Cases:
Managing access to Google Cloud resources, enforcing security policies, and auditing
access.

Cloud VPC (Virtual Private Cloud)

Cloud VPC provides networking functionality for your Google Cloud resources,
enabling you to define and control your network topology, IP addressing, and routing.
It's a global resource that allows you to connect resources across regions.

Key Aspects: * Global Network: A single VPC network can span multiple regions, with
regional subnetworks. * Firewall Rules: Distributed virtual firewalls for granular
control over ingress and egress traffic. * Shared VPC: Allows multiple projects to use a
common VPC network, centralizing network administration. * VPC Network Peering:
Connects VPC networks privately across different projects or organizations. * Private
Google Access: Enables VMs without external IP addresses to access Google APIs and
services privately. * Use Cases: Building isolated network environments, connecting
hybrid cloud deployments, and securing network communications.

Cloud Load Balancing

Cloud Load Balancing is a fully distributed, software-defined service that distributes

user traffic across multiple instances of your applications. It provides high availability,
scalability, and performance for your applications.

Key Aspects: * Global Anycast IP: Provides a single global IP address for all backends,
enabling cross-region load balancing. * Software-Defined: No physical hardware to
manage, offering high scalability and reliability. * Layer 4 and Layer 7: Supports both
network (TCP/UDP) and application (HTTP/HTTPS) layer load balancing. * External
and Internal: Distributes traffic from the internet or within Google Cloud. *
Integration: Integrates with Cloud CDN for content caching and Google Cloud Armor
for DDoS protection. * Use Cases: Distributing traffic to web servers, microservices,
and other application backends for high availability and performance.
Cloud CDN (Content Delivery Network)

Cloud CDN uses Google's global edge network to serve content closer to users,
accelerating websites and applications. It caches content at Google's points of
presence (PoPs) around the world, reducing latency and offloading traffic from origin
servers.

Key Aspects: * Global Edge Network: Leverages Google's extensive network of edge
locations. * Caching: Caches static and dynamic content at the edge for faster delivery.
* Integration: Works seamlessly with Google Cloud Load Balancing. * Cache
Invalidation: Allows for invalidating cached content when updates are needed. * Use
Cases: Accelerating website and application delivery, reducing origin server load, and
improving user experience.

CI/CD Best Practices on Google Cloud

Continuous Integration (CI) and Continuous Delivery (CD) are crucial for modern
software development. This section outlines best practices for implementing CI/CD
pipelines on Google Cloud, particularly with Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE).

Continuous Integration (CI)

CI involves frequently integrating code changes into a main branch to detect issues
early. CI pipelines are typically triggered by code pushes and include steps like linting,
testing, and building, producing an artifact for deployment.

Key Best Practices for CI:

Create Pipelines for Rapid Iteration: Aim for short CI pipeline run times (under
10 minutes) to facilitate fast feedback. Consider having both Rapid Pipelines (for
quick feedback on feature branches) and Full Pipelines (for comprehensive tests
on merge/pull requests and main branch commits).

Test Your Container Images: Run all necessary tests (unit, functional,
integration, load/performance) on your code and build artifacts. Crucially, test
the structure of your built container images to ensure correct execution and
content. Tools like Container Structure Tests can be used for this.
 Establish Security Early in Pipelines: Implement security checks as early as
possible in the development lifecycle to reduce costs and risks. This includes
requiring subject matter expert review, implementing linting and static code
analysis, scanning container images for vulnerabilities (e.g., using Container
Analysis), and preventing vulnerable images from being deployed using Binary
Authorization.

Continuous Delivery (CD)

CD enables you to release code at any time, operating on artifacts produced by CI

pipelines. CD pipelines can be longer than CI pipelines, especially with advanced
deployment strategies.

Key Best Practices for CD:

Use GitOps Methodology: Store declarative infrastructure in Git repositories and

use CI/CD tools to deploy it. This ensures all changes to applications and clusters
are version-controlled and accessible, providing a single source of truth and
easier recovery from failures. Common tools include Terraform and Config
Connector.

Promote, Rather Than Rebuild Container Images: Build container images once
and promote them across environments (development, staging, production)
instead of rebuilding them at each stage. This prevents minor differences and
ensures the tested image is the deployed image.

Consider Using More Advanced Deployment and Testing Patterns: GKE offers
flexibility for deployment patterns based on business goals. Examples include:

Recreating a deployment: Fully scales down the old version before scaling
up the new version.

Rolling update deployment: Updates a subset of instances progressively

until all are updated.

Blue-green deployment: Deploys a new version in parallel with the

existing one, then switches traffic when ready.

Separate Clusters for Different Environments: Maintain separate GKE clusters

for different environments (development, pre-production/staging/QA,
production) to ensure isolation and appropriate configurations. Development
 environments have fewer gates, while pre-production environments should
closely resemble production for comprehensive testing.

Serverless and Microservices Architectures

Modern cloud application development heavily relies on serverless and microservices

architectures. Understanding these concepts and their application on Google Cloud is
crucial for the Professional Cloud Developer exam.

Serverless Architecture

Serverless architecture is a software design approach where developers can build and
run applications without managing the underlying server infrastructure. The cloud
provider dynamically manages the allocation and provisioning of servers.

Key Characteristics: * No Server Management: Developers focus on code, while the

cloud provider handles infrastructure. * Automatic Scaling: Resources automatically
scale up or down based on demand. * Pay-per-Execution: You only pay for the
compute time consumed when your code is running. * Event-Driven: Often triggered
by events (e.g., HTTP requests, database changes, file uploads).

Benefits: * Reduced operational overhead and cost. * Increased developer

productivity. * High scalability and availability.

Google Cloud Serverless Products: * Cloud Functions: For event-driven functions. *

Cloud Run: For stateless containerized applications. * App Engine: For web
applications and mobile backends. * Cloud Firestore/Datastore: Scalable NoSQL
databases. * Cloud Pub/Sub: Asynchronous messaging. * Cloud Tasks: Asynchronous
task execution.

Microservices Architecture

Microservices architecture is an architectural style that structures an application as a

collection of loosely coupled, independently deployable services. Each service is
responsible for a specific business capability and communicates with others through
well-defined APIs.
Key Characteristics: * Decoupled Services: Services are independent and can be
developed, deployed, and scaled independently. * Business Capability Focused:
Each service is built around a specific business function. * Independent Data Storage:
Each service typically manages its own data storage. * Communication via APIs:
Services communicate using lightweight mechanisms, often HTTP/REST or gRPC.

Benefits: * Improved scalability and agility. * Enhanced resilience (failure in one

service doesn't bring down the whole application). * Technology diversity (different
services can use different technologies). * Easier to develop, deploy, and maintain
complex applications.

Google Cloud Products for Microservices: * Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE): Ideal
for orchestrating containerized microservices. * Cloud Run: For deploying stateless
microservices as containers. * Cloud Pub/Sub: For asynchronous communication
between microservices. * Cloud Endpoints/Apigee: For API management and
securing microservices. * Various Databases: Cloud SQL, Cloud Spanner, Cloud
Firestore, Cloud Bigtable for data storage.

Relationship between Serverless and Microservices: Serverless is a deployment

model, while microservices is an architectural style. You can implement microservices
using serverless technologies (e.g., a microservice can be a Cloud Function or a Cloud
Run service). Serverless platforms simplify the operational aspects of managing
microservices by handling scaling and infrastructure.

Application Security Best Practices

Securing applications on Google Cloud is paramount. This section outlines key

security best practices for developers and application deployments on GCP, covering
various layers from identity management to incident response.

Identity and Access Management (IAM) Best Practices

Principle of Least Privilege: Grant only the necessary permissions to users and
service accounts. Avoid overly permissive roles (e.g., Owner , Editor ) in
production.

Strong Authentication: Enforce multi-factor authentication (MFA) for all users,

especially privileged accounts.
 Service Account Management: Create dedicated service accounts with limited
scope for each application. Regularly rotate service account keys.

Google Groups: Use Google Groups to simplify permission management and

auditing for collections of users.

Network Security Best Practices

VPC Networks and Firewall Rules: Design segmented VPC networks and
implement strict firewall rules to control traffic. Use VPC Service Controls to
create security perimeters and mitigate data exfiltration.

Private IP Usage: Prefer private IP addresses for internal communication to

reduce public internet exposure.

Load Balancing and CDN: Utilize Cloud Load Balancing for secure traffic
distribution and integrate with Google Cloud Armor for DDoS protection and WAF
capabilities. Use Cloud CDN to reduce the attack surface on origin servers.

Data Protection Best Practices

Encryption Everywhere:
Encryption at Rest: Google Cloud encrypts data at rest by default. Consider
Customer-Managed Encryption Keys (CMEK) or Customer-Supplied
Encryption Keys (CSEK) for sensitive data.

Encryption in Transit: Ensure applications use secure communication

protocols (TLS/SSL) for all data in transit.

Secret Management: Store sensitive information (API keys, credentials) in

Google Secret Manager instead of hardcoding.

Data Loss Prevention (DLP): Implement DLP policies to identify, classify, and
protect sensitive data.

Application Development and Deployment Security

Secure Coding Practices: Follow secure coding guidelines, and regularly scan
code for vulnerabilities using SAST and DAST tools.

Container Security: Use trusted base images, scan container images for
vulnerabilities (e.g., with Container Analysis), implement Binary Authorization to
 ensure only trusted images are deployed, and run containers with least
privileges.

Serverless Security: For Cloud Functions and Cloud Run, ensure minimal
necessary permissions and authorized triggers.

CI/CD Pipeline Security: Integrate security checks early into pipelines, ensure
integrity of build artifacts, and use secure build environments.

Logging, Monitoring, and Auditing

Centralized Logging: Use Cloud Logging for a comprehensive audit trail.

Proactive Monitoring and Alerting: Set up Cloud Monitoring alerts for

suspicious activities and security events. Monitor changes in IAM policies and
firewall rules.

Audit Logs: Regularly review Cloud Audit Logs to track administrative activities
and data access.

Security Command Center: Use for a centralized view of your security posture,
identifying vulnerabilities and threats.

Incident Response and Disaster Recovery

Incident Response Plan: Develop and regularly test a plan for handling security
breaches.

Backup and Recovery: Implement robust backup and disaster recovery

strategies for critical data and applications.

By adhering to these best practices, developers can significantly enhance the security
posture of their applications deployed on Google Cloud Platform.

API Design and Management

Effective API design and robust API management are critical for building scalable and
maintainable applications on Google Cloud. This section covers best practices for
designing APIs and leveraging Google Cloud's API management solutions.
API Design Best Practices

Google Cloud advocates for a resource-oriented approach to API design, emphasizing

consistency, predictability, and ease of use. This approach is detailed in Google's API
Design Guide, which is highly recommended for developers building APIs on GCP.

Key Principles of Google's API Design Guide:

Resource-oriented Design: APIs are structured around resources (nouns) that

are manipulated by methods (verbs). This promotes a clear and intuitive
interface.
Resources: Represent entities (e.g., users , orders ).

Collections: Groups of resources (e.g., users collection of user

resources).

Standard Methods: Utilize predefined methods for common operations to

ensure consistency:
Get : Retrieve a single resource.

List : Retrieve a collection of resources.

Create : Create a new resource.

Update : Modify an existing resource.

Delete : Remove a resource.

Custom Methods: Use sparingly for operations that don't fit standard methods.

Consistent Naming Conventions: Apply strict naming rules for resources,

methods, and fields.

Error Handling: Implement standardized error models and codes for clear,
actionable error messages.

Versioning: Version APIs (e.g., v1 , v2 ) to allow for evolution without breaking

existing clients.

Backward Compatibility: Strive for backward compatibility to minimize client

disruption.

Documentation: Provide comprehensive documentation for resources,

methods, and error responses.
Benefits of Following API Design Best Practices: * Improved developer experience
and API adoption. * Reduced development time and enhanced maintainability. *
Better scalability and performance.

API Management on Google Cloud

API management encompasses the entire lifecycle of APIs, from development and
deployment to monitoring and security. Google Cloud offers robust solutions for API
management, with Apigee being its flagship platform.

Apigee API Management

Apigee is Google Cloud's native API management platform, designed for enterprise-
grade API programs. It provides comprehensive features for building, managing, and
securing APIs at scale.

Key Features of Apigee: * API Proxy Layer: Acts as a facade for backend services,
providing granular control over security, rate limiting, quotas, and analytics. * Policy-
Driven: Offers a rich set of pre-built policies for security, traffic management, data
transformation, and custom logic. * Hybrid/Multicloud Deployment: Supports
deploying APIs across various environments, including on-premises and other cloud
providers. * Developer Portals: Facilitates developer onboarding and API
consumption through customizable portals. * Advanced Analytics: Provides detailed
insights into API usage, performance, and errors. * API Monetization: Enables creating
rate plans and business models for API products.

How Apigee Works: Apigee sits between API consumers and backend services,
allowing you to apply policies and manage API traffic without modifying backend
code.

Common Use Cases for Apigee: * Exposing legacy systems as APIs. * Building new
digital products and services. * Monetizing APIs. * Securing API ecosystems.

Other Google Cloud API Management Tools

Cloud Endpoints: A distributed API management system for developing,

deploying, and managing APIs on Google Cloud. It supports OpenAPI
Specification and gRPC.
 API Gateway: A fully managed service for creating, securing, and monitoring APIs
for serverless backends (Cloud Functions, Cloud Run, App Engine).

Choosing the right API management solution depends on the complexity, scale, and
specific requirements of your API ecosystem.

Application Security Best Practices

Securing applications on Google Cloud is paramount. This section outlines key

security best practices for developers and application deployments on GCP, covering
various layers from identity management to incident response.

Identity and Access Management (IAM) Best Practices

Principle of Least Privilege: Grant only the necessary permissions to users and
service accounts. Avoid overly permissive roles (e.g., Owner , Editor ) in
production.

Strong Authentication: Enforce multi-factor authentication (MFA) for all users,

especially privileged accounts.

Service Account Management: Create dedicated service accounts with limited

scope for each application. Regularly rotate service account keys.

Google Groups: Use Google Groups to simplify permission management and

auditing for collections of users.

Network Security Best Practices

VPC Networks and Firewall Rules: Design segmented VPC networks and
implement strict firewall rules to control traffic. Use VPC Service Controls to
create security perimeters and mitigate data exfiltration.

Private IP Usage: Prefer private IP addresses for internal communication to

reduce public internet exposure.

Load Balancing and CDN: Utilize Cloud Load Balancing for secure traffic
distribution and integrate with Google Cloud Armor for DDoS protection and WAF
capabilities. Use Cloud CDN to reduce the attack surface on origin servers.
Data Protection Best Practices

Encryption Everywhere:
Encryption at Rest: Google Cloud encrypts data at rest by default. Consider
Customer-Managed Encryption Keys (CMEK) or Customer-Supplied
Encryption Keys (CSEK) for sensitive data.

Encryption in Transit: Ensure applications use secure communication

protocols (TLS/SSL) for all data in transit.

Secret Management: Store sensitive information (API keys, credentials) in

Google Secret Manager instead of hardcoding.

Data Loss Prevention (DLP): Implement DLP policies to identify, classify, and
protect sensitive data.

Application Development and Deployment Security

Secure Coding Practices: Follow secure coding guidelines, and regularly scan
code for vulnerabilities using SAST and DAST tools.

Container Security: Use trusted base images, scan container images for
vulnerabilities (e.g., with Container Analysis), implement Binary Authorization to
ensure only trusted images are deployed, and run containers with least
privileges.

Serverless Security: For Cloud Functions and Cloud Run, ensure minimal
necessary permissions and authorized triggers.

CI/CD Pipeline Security: Integrate security checks early into pipelines, ensure
integrity of build artifacts, and use secure build environments.

Logging, Monitoring, and Auditing

Centralized Logging: Use Cloud Logging for a comprehensive audit trail.

Proactive Monitoring and Alerting: Set up Cloud Monitoring alerts for

suspicious activities and security events. Monitor changes in IAM policies and
firewall rules.

Audit Logs: Regularly review Cloud Audit Logs to track administrative activities
and data access.
 Security Command Center: Use for a centralized view of your security posture,
identifying vulnerabilities and threats.

Incident Response and Disaster Recovery

Incident Response Plan: Develop and regularly test a plan for handling security
breaches.

Backup and Recovery: Implement robust backup and disaster recovery

strategies for critical data and applications.

By adhering to these best practices, developers can significantly enhance the security
posture of their applications deployed on Google Cloud Platform.

API Design and Management

Effective API design and robust API management are critical for building scalable and
maintainable applications on Google Cloud. This section covers best practices for
designing APIs and leveraging Google Cloud's API management solutions.

API Design Best Practices

Google Cloud advocates for a resource-oriented approach to API design, emphasizing

consistency, predictability, and ease of use. This approach is detailed in Google's API
Design Guide, which is highly recommended for developers building APIs on GCP.

Key Principles of Google's API Design Guide:

Resource-oriented Design: APIs are structured around resources (nouns) that

are manipulated by methods (verbs). This promotes a clear and intuitive
interface.
Resources: Represent entities (e.g., users , orders ).

Collections: Groups of resources (e.g., users collection of user

resources).

Standard Methods: Utilize predefined methods for common operations to

ensure consistency:
Get : Retrieve a single resource.
 List : Retrieve a collection of resources.

Create : Create a new resource.

Update : Modify an existing resource.

Delete : Remove a resource.

Custom Methods: Use sparingly for operations that don't fit standard methods.

Consistent Naming Conventions: Apply strict naming rules for resources,

methods, and fields.

Error Handling: Implement standardized error models and codes for clear,
actionable error messages.

Versioning: Version APIs (e.g., v1 , v2 ) to allow for evolution without breaking

existing clients.

Backward Compatibility: Strive for backward compatibility to minimize client

disruption.

Documentation: Provide comprehensive documentation for resources,

methods, and error responses.

Benefits of Following API Design Best Practices: * Improved developer experience

and API adoption. * Reduced development time and enhanced maintainability. *
Better scalability and performance.

API Management on Google Cloud

API management encompasses the entire lifecycle of APIs, from development and
deployment to monitoring and security. Google Cloud offers robust solutions for API
management, with Apigee being its flagship platform.

Apigee API Management

Apigee is Google Cloud's native API management platform, designed for enterprise-
grade API programs. It provides comprehensive features for building, managing, and
securing APIs at scale.

Key Features of Apigee: * API Proxy Layer: Acts as a facade for backend services,
providing granular control over security, rate limiting, quotas, and analytics. * Policy-
Driven: Offers a rich set of pre-built policies for security, traffic management, data
transformation, and custom logic. * Hybrid/Multicloud Deployment: Supports
deploying APIs across various environments, including on-premises and other cloud
providers. * Developer Portals: Facilitates developer onboarding and API
consumption through customizable portals. * Advanced Analytics: Provides detailed
insights into API usage, performance, and errors. * API Monetization: Enables creating
rate plans and business models for API products.

How Apigee Works: Apigee sits between API consumers and backend services,
allowing you to apply policies and manage API traffic without modifying backend
code.

Common Use Cases for Apigee: * Exposing legacy systems as APIs. * Building new
digital products and services. * Monetizing APIs. * Securing API ecosystems.

Other Google Cloud API Management Tools

Cloud Endpoints: A distributed API management system for developing,

deploying, and managing APIs on Google Cloud. It supports OpenAPI
Specification and gRPC.

API Gateway: A fully managed service for creating, securing, and monitoring APIs
for serverless backends (Cloud Functions, Cloud Run, App Engine).

Choosing the right API management solution depends on the complexity, scale, and
specific requirements of your API ecosystem.