It's easy to get started developing Ruby on Rails apps that run on Google Cloud Platform (GCP). Because the apps you create run on the same infrastructure that powers all of Google's products, you can be confident that they can scale to serve all of your users, whether there are a few or millions of them.
Hosting platforms
There are three main options for deploying Rails on GCP.
| Rails deployment option | Use if you want | Don't use if you need | Get started |
|---|---|---|---|
| App Engine flexible environment |
|
Total control over the underlying virtual machines. | Rails on App Engine flexible environment |
| Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE) |
|
A fully-featured platform-as-a-service (PaaS). For a container-based PaaS, consider App Engine flexible environment. | Rails on GKE |
| Compute Engine |
|
A serverless environment without the need to configure your own infrastructure | Rails in Compute Engine |
Databases
Relational databases
Rails Active Record works best with a traditional SQL database. If you are starting a new project, Cloud SQL is a good choice. With a few clicks you can create a MySQL or PostgreSQL database that is fully managed and scaled by Google, with no management on your end. Review the Using Cloud SQL for MySQL with Rails 5 tutorial or the Using Cloud SQL for PostgreSQL with Rails 5.
NoSQL databases
In many situations, there are compelling reasons to use a NoSQL database, for example, scalability or suitability for your data model. Although using Rails models with a NoSQL database can be challenging, it is possible with some limitations. For example, you can express many types of database joins in Rails, but joins aren't supported by Cloud Datastore or other NoSQL databases such as MongoDB. You can learn more by reviewing our Rails Bookshelf tutorial using Cloud Datastore, which uses Cloud Datastore as its non-relational database. For a managed, massively-scalable NoSQL solution, consider Cloud Datastore, which is a non-relational database that often scales better than a SQL solution.
If you choose to use MongoDB, you can deploy it by using Google Cloud Platform Marketplace and do your own management, or you can use the managed MongoDB hosting service provided by mLab.
Caches
To install Memcached on Compute Engine, you can use GCP Marketplace. To install Memcached on either Compute Engine or GKE , you can use the Memcached Docker image. Similarly, you can install Redis by using GCP Marketplace or the Redis docker image.
