Answering the Top-25 most asked Google Cloud questions of 2022

Google Cloud is on an exceptional growth trajectory. With our investments in multicloud and AI/ML, to sustainable infrastructure, industry solutions, and technology we are proud that our customers trust Google Cloud solutions to digitally transform their business. We deeply understand today's technology requirements and the need to continuously innovate. In addition, we always listen to our customers, incorporate feedback and answer questions to increase transparency and trust around Google Cloud. 

More companies are using Google Cloud in their daily business and are trailblazing in their industries. As many engineering teams are using Google Cloud - it's inevitable that many questions arise. 

The popularity and interest of Google Cloud is greatly reflected in Google Search. In this blog post, we analyzed the most popular search queries on Google Cloud. In detail, we pulled the most common questions containing "google cloud" or "gcp" (google cloud platform) and answered them.

After cleaning up non-questions or keyword based searches, here's the list of top questions asked in 2022 (ranked by search volume).

Most common questions about Google Cloud

1. What is Google Cloud?

Google Cloud is a cloud computing service by Google that offers hosting on the same supporting infrastructure that Google uses internally for end-user products like Google Search and YouTube. Cloud Platform provides developer products to build a range of programs from simple websites to complex applications.

2. What is Firebase?

Firebase is an app development platform that helps you build and grow apps and games users love. It provides the tools and infrastructure you need to develop, grow, and earn money from your app.

3. What is BigQuery?

BigQuery is a fully-managed, serverless enterprise data warehouse that helps you manage and analyze your data with built-in features like machine learning, geospatial analysis, and business intelligence.

4. What does GCP mean?

GCP stands for Google Cloud Platform. It's the previously used name that we now shortened to Google Cloud.

5. How to download from Google Cloud storage?

There are many ways to download files from Google Cloud Storage.

You can do it through the console by going to Cloud Storage > Buckets > Click the bucket you want to download from > Click the file you want to download > Press DOWNLOAD at the top.

Assuming you configured your command line, you can also download files with the following command: 

More info here.

6. How to set up a Google Cloud Account?

The first step is to create an account. After that, the Google Cloud console has an interactive checklist which helps you to set up the account with the minimal set of best practices.

7. How do AWS vs Azure vs Google Cloud services compare?

We have a handy table helping you to see the mapping of the services between Cloud providers. You can filter the table with keywords, such as a service type, capability, or product name to find exactly what you are looking for:  https://cloud.google.com/free/docs/aws-azure-gcp-service-comparison

8. What kind of data can be stored in Google Cloud Storage?

You can use Google Cloud Storage to store data in Google's cloud. Cloud Storage is typically used to store unstructured data. You can add files of any kind and size, and up to 5 TB each. Find Google Cloud Storage in the left side menu of the Google Cloud Platform Console, under Storage. More info here.

9. How to install Google Cloud SDK?

Depending on your setup, you can choose various  installation methods. All details including a step-by-step guidance can be found here.

10. How to transfer a Firebase project to another account?

To transfer a Firebase project to another account, follow those steps:

• Select your project in the Firebase Console

• Click on the gear icon on the top right next to "Project Overview"

• Click User and Permissions > Add Member

• Add the new account as "Owner"

11. How to migrate a MySQL database to Google Cloud SQL?

Google provides Database Migration Service to migrate data to Cloud SQL for MySQL. For your convenience, we created a quickstart that shows you how to use Database Migration Service. All details can be found here.

12. How to solve “ImportError: No module named google.cloud”?

This error occurs when Python cannot find the dedicated library. The most frequent source of this error is that you haven’t installed the specific Google Cloud library. Thus, you might need to pip install the missing library. In case you have different Python versions on your computer - make sure to install the library for the particular version you’re using.

13. How to set up gcloud in GitHub actions on GCP?

GitHub Actions is a CI/CD SaaS solution offered by GitHub. Currently Google has published the setup-gcloud action enabling customers to use gcloud and gsutil tools within their GitHub Action workflows.
You can find a step-by-step guide here.

14. How to delete a Google Cloud account?

To completely delete your Google Cloud account, In the console, go to the Account Management page under "Billing". At the prompt, choose the Cloud Billing account that you want to close. The Account management page opens for the selected Cloud Billing account. At the top of the page, click "Close billing Account". 

15. How to create a service account on Google Cloud?

You can create service accounts in various ways such as via the Console, gcloud CLI, REST, and others. By default, each project can have up to 100 service accounts that control access to your resources.

To quickly create one with the command line:

And to grant an IAM policy to the newly created account:

More details can be found here.

16. How to list all resources associated with a project on Google Cloud?

After enabling the Cloud Asset API, you can use the following command:

More info on the command-line arguments here.

17. What is the difference between App Engine vs Cloud Run on Google Cloud?

AppEngine and Cloud Run share many similarities: they are both Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) products  can be used to run code and containers without managing the underlying server
AppEngine has been around since 2008 while Cloud Run was launched more recently, in 2019 and it's seeing a lot of new feature announcements. Some of Cloud Run's advantages include its container-first approach and its tighter integration with EventArc, a more fine-grained billing model which can save you cost and a more powerful autoscaler.

18. Which service can be used for running a website backend on Google Cloud?

There are many ways to serve websites on Google Cloud.. If you're new to using Google Cloud, it's a reasonable approach to start by using the kind of technology you're already familiar with. 

• Compute Engine, configurable VMs on Google’s infrastructure

• Cloud Run, managed serverless container platform

• Google Kubernetes Engine, Google-managed Kubernetes 

• Cloud Functions, functions as a service
  

The following table summarizes your hosting options on Google Cloud.

19. How to open ports on Google Cloud?

You can use VPC firewall rules to open ports on Google Cloud.

For example, you can open port 22 to any source on your default VPC with:

A dedicated step-by-step guide to create firewall rules can be found here.

20. Does Google Cloud charge for stopped instances?

VMs in the TERMINATED state are not charged for per-second usage and do not count toward your regional CPU quota. However, any resources attached to the VM, such as persistent disks and external IP addresses, are charged until they are deleted. To stop being charged for attached resources, you can reconfigure a stopped VM to detach those resources, and then delete the resources.

You can choose to stop VMs that you're not using, saving you from being charged for VMs that aren't active. When you are ready, you can start the VMs again, with the same VM properties, metadata, and resources. More info here.

21. How to create a bucket on Google Cloud Storage?

Using the command line simply run:

You can find more ways to do it here.

22. How to open Cloud Shell on Google Cloud?

To start a new session click Activate Cloud Shell at the top right of the Google Cloud console. A Cloud Shell session opens inside a new frame at the bottom of the Google Cloud console and displays a command-line prompt. It can take a few seconds for the session to be initialized. More info here.

23. How to rename Google Cloud  project

To change a Google Cloud project name, go to "IAM Admin" > "Manage Resources", click on the three dots next to your project name, click on settings and from there you will be able to rename it.

With the command line, you can run:

Changing a project ID is currently impossible.

24. How to reduce disk size?

Right now, reducing disk size of a persistent disk is not supported. An indirect way of doing it would be to create a new smaller disk and copy the disk contents to it. 

To increase the disk size, use the gcloud compute disks resize command and specify the --size flag with the desired disk size, in gigabytes.

25. How to authenticate Terraform on Google Cloud?

The easiest way to do this is to run:

If you already have gcloud installed. If you don't already have it, you can install it from here. More info here.

This is great! But I need more help.

After reading the “Answering the 25 most asked Google Cloud questions of 2022”, if you have further questions we encourage you to continue searching on Google, have a look into our documentation, or directly contact a Google Cloud specialist.

If you run business-critical workloads on Google Cloud, we recommend you to purchase a support package to have dedicated specialists look into your issues with a guaranteed SLA.

We hope that the answers of those questions will also help you throughout 2023 and wish you a successful year using Google Cloud!