Ever since the launch of Google Cloud in 2008, the search giant has been working to dominate the cloud hosting industry. Overtime, GCP has built a strong portfolio of clients; Spotify, HSBC, Home Depot, Snapchat, HTC, Best Buy, Cocacola, Feedly, Sony Music, and Ubisoft. Hosting with Google is always a challenge for novice developers. In this beginners guide & article, we’ll simplify the Google Cloud platform setup & configuration process to host a website.
The Challenges in Using Google Cloud Platform (Setup)
Configuring and managing a Google Compute Engine server requires an expert-level understanding of various stacks and expertise in managing a cloud server. Then there’s also patching, OS upgrades, firewall configurations, and backups that form the regular operational tasks of the system administrator and/or server owner.
Setting up of Environment is Time Consuming
Setting up the server on GCE’s platform is a tedious task. Before deploying the web application, an operating system needs to be installed on the server. After that, Apache, MySQL, and PHP (LAMP) environment need to be set up and this is a time-consuming procedure. For a nontechie, this process of getting the server ready for action is really frustrating.
Managing Network Security on Google Cloud Setup
Maintaining server security is an essential server management task that protects against cyber attacks. This generally means deploying a firewall and IDS. like other server components, both these security components need to be continuously monitored and updated.
Remember that ignoring server security can get very costly for the business as hackers look for vulnerabilities to gain access to the application core.
Connecting File Transfer Protocols
After launching and setting up the server, it’s important to set up file transfer protocols in order to send and receive files from the local machine to the cloud server. The IP address of the server needs to be static to avoid reconfiguration after every server restart. In this beginners guide & article, we’ll simplify the Google Cloud platform setup & configuration process to host a website.
Issues with Dynamic IP
By default, most cloud servers have a provider-allocated dynamic IP address. In this case, if the server crashes for any reason, the IP changes at the restart. This has consequences for the deployed and connected applications where the IP needs to be reset.
It is easy to imagine the loss for the business in the server restart scenario where data exchange between the server and the applications would come to a halt because of mismatched IP addresses. In this beginners guide & article, we’ll simplify the Google Cloud platform setup & configuration process to host a website.
Server Management
The cloud server demands continuous monitoring and a sysadmin with experience in server administration and maintenance. Hence, managing the server without a dedicated resource can get overwhelming, even for seasoned developers.
Server monitoring keeps a close eye on traffic spikes, login attempts and other such activities that can hinder server processes. In this beginners guide & article, we’ll simplify the Google Cloud platform setup & configuration process to host a website.
Why Host Web Applications on Cloudways Managed Google Cloud?
Understanding the benefits of using Google Compute Engine, let’s understand the need to add a platform between the end-user and the infrastructure. Unless the end-user is familiar with server management, tasks such as server maintenance and security patching can become a roadblock in daily business operations.
Hence, this is where a managed-hosting cloud hosting platform (Platform-as-a-Service) PaaS comes in handy. The end-user signs up with the PaaS and can now focus on tasks that involve business operations.
How?
There are a number of ways PaaS solution providers strip away server related work, as they have the experience and understanding to make this easy. With a few clicks, a web app can be deployed on a designated server, which would otherwise be done through manual installations.
Performance Optimization
Thanks to several innovative features, Cloudways offers a very optimized platform for all PHP applications. The optimizations start from the stack that actually hosts web applications.
This stack comprises a combination of servers (Apache & NGINX) and caches (Varnish, Redis, and Memcached) that come together to offer exceptional page load speed.
Top-Rated Support
When they need help, Cloudways users can get the issue resolved through the dedicated efforts of the stellar Cloudways support team. This team can be reached through support tickets that are resolved as per the mutually agreed SLA. If you need a more-hands on support, there is a choice of premium support addons.
Free Migration
Once you have upgraded your account you get a free migration to bring in your application to the Cloudways platform.
Dedicated IP
All Cloudways managed servers have a dedicated IP. As a result, even when the server restarts, the IP doesn’t change and thus there is no need to reconfigure applications to ensure proper functionality. I maes the Google Cloud setup easier.
Powerful Addons
Cloudways offers an array of add-ons to extend platform functionality. These add-ons by the Cloudways dev teams and work on the platform without any hitches.
Let’s start with two popular ones: SMTP Addon and Elastic Email Addon. Elastic Email add-on adds support for transactional email delivery and management. SMTP Addon simplifies the process of configuring an external SMTP service for transactional email delivery.
DNS Made Easy is another popular addon that simplifies DNS management on the Cloudways platform. With this addon, users can configure their domains and even have a DNS failover to deal with domain name resolution conflicts.
Real-time Server Performance Monitoring on Google Cloud Website Setup
Monitoring server performance is an essential aspect of any managed hosting platform. At Cloudways, you can view 15 server performance metrics including Idle CPU, Free memory and disk usage.
The time frame generally ranges from an hour to six months. Users can view both the statistics and detailed graphs to extract relevant information about server performance statistics.
Security on Google Cloud Setup
Security lies at the core of Cloudays operations. Every cloudways server has firewalls that filter out malicious traffic. Similarly, the Cloudways teams constantly patch the OS and applications so that the security loopholes do not affect users’ servers and applications.
To provide end-to-end encryption for all communication between the server and the users, Cloudways offers free SSL certificates (powered by Let’s Encrypt). To harden account security, 2FA by default so that only admin users and devices can access the account. In fact, the Coudways platform tracks all login attempts and notifies account owners about all suspicious attempts.
Launch the Server with the Desired Application on GCE
On the Cloudways platform, launching a managed GCE server with the application of your choice is a matter of clicks.
The first step is to sign up with Cloudways, and the rest is pretty self-explanatory.
Once the account is up and ready to go, click the server launch button. This brings you to the server and application launch screen where you can select the application and GCE server specifications Finally, select the data center located closest to the target audience. After that, the platform takes over the process of server provisioning and app installation.
Final Thoughts About Google Cloud Website Setup
Using Cloudways as a managed GCE server management platform greatly simplifies business processes. GCE offers a lot of power that requires a lot of technical knowledge. So, expertise for setting up and managing the server.
In conclusion, Cloudways takes away all the pain from the initial server set up and simplifies the application installation process. So that businesses can start leveraging the GCE advantage without worrying about the technical complexities of server management.
Once the server and the application are up and running. Cloudways takes care of all server management issues (including server security). So that the businesses could continue to focus on running their businesses.
