Last month today: August on GCP

Last month on the Google Cloud Platform (GCP) blog, we dove into hardware, software, and the humans who make technology work. Here’s what topped our charts in August.

Exploring the nuts and bolts of cloud

• Google already uses AMD’s EPYC processors for internal workloads, and last month we announced that they’re coming to the data centers that power Google Cloud products. Second-gen AMD EPYC processors will soon power our new virtual machines—the largest general-purpose VMs we’ve ever offered. There will be a range of sizes for these AMD VMs so you can choose accordingly, and can also configure them as custom machine types. Improvements like these can help you get more performance for the price for your workloads. 

• One small button can make it easy for other developers to deploy your app to GCP using Cloud Run, our managed compute platform that lets you deploy containerized serverless apps. You can add the new Cloud Run Button to any source code repository that has a dockerfile or that can be built with Cloud Native Buildpacks. One click will package the app source code as a container image, push it to Google Container Registry, then deploy it on Cloud Run. 

Looking at the human side of technology

• This blog post offered a look at the tradeoffs that CIOs and CTOs have to make in their pursuit of business acceleration in a hybrid world, based on recent McKinsey research. While digital transformation and new tech capabilities are in high demand, leaders can avoid making tradeoffs by choosing technology wisely and making necessary operational changes too, including fostering a change mindset. There are tips here on embracing a DevOps model, using a flexible hybrid cloud model, and adopting open-source architectures to avoid common pitfalls.

• This year’s Accelerate State of DevOps Report is available now, and offers a look at the latest in DevOps, with tips for organizations at all stages of DevOps maturity. This year, data shows that the percentage of elite performers is at its highest ever, and that these elite performers are more likely to use cloud. The report found that most cloud users still aren’t getting all of its benefits, though. DevOps should be a team effort, too, with both organizational and team-level efforts important for success.

How customers are developing with cloud

• Google Cloud customers are pushing innovation further to serve customers in lots of interesting ways. First up this month is Macy’s, which uses Google Cloud to help provide customers with great online and in-person experiences. The company is streamlining retail operations across its network with cloud, and uses GCP’s data warehousing and analytics to optimize all kinds of merchandise tasks at its new distribution center.

• We also heard this month from Itau Unibanco of Brazil, which developed a digital customer service tool to offer instant help to bank users. They use Google Cloud to build a Kubeflow-based CI/CD pipeline to deploy machine learning models and serve customers quickly and accurately. The post offers a look at their architecture and offers tips for replicating the pipeline.

• Last but not least, check out this story on how web developers are using Google Maps Platform and custom Street View imagery to offer virtual tours to the top of Zugspitze, the tallest mountain in Germany. Along with exploring APIs and deciding how to use the technology, the developers took a ton of 360° photos while hiking up and down parts of the 10,000-foot mountain. Take the tour yourself on their site.

That’s a wrap for August! Stay tuned on the blog for all the latest.