Welcome to issue #269 November 22nd, 2021

News

Get 6X read performance with Memorystore for Redis Read Replicas - Memorystore for Redis supports Read Replicas preview, allowing you to scale up to five replicas and achieve over one million read requests per second.

Get planet-scale monitoring with Managed Service for Prometheus - Google Cloud's managed Prometheus monitoring solution, offering collection, storage, and global querying of Prometheus metrics at scale.

Bare Metal Solution launches its second Sydney location - GCP Bare Metal Solution for Oracle launched in Sydney.

TechEd 2021: What’s new for SAP customers on Google Cloud - Google Cloud announces three new cloud capabilities sure to delight SAP customers at SAP TechEd.

Insights from our global hybrid work survey - Working with The Economist Group, Google Workspace sponsored a global survey focused on the opportunities and challenges of hybrid work.

Articles, Tutorials

Infrastructure, Networking, Security, Kubernetes

Edge computing—a paradigm shift that goes beyond hybrid cloud - Edge platforms are evolving at an incredible speed, opening up opportunities for enterprises. Google tools like Kubernetes, GKE and Anthos can help.

Foundations of a scalable website on GCP - See how to use Google Cloud to set up and protect your websites in a scalable and smart way.

How to create and safeguard your admin accounts - Getting your permissions scheme right can be tricky, but it's also vitally important to protecting your data.

What is Cloud CDN and how does it work? - Cloud CDN is a content delivery network that accelerates your web and video content delivery by using Google's global edge network to bring content as close to your users as possible.

Exposing the client behind PSC - Private Service Connect (PSC) enables a producer-consumer model in VPCs without network connectivity between them but hiding the client.

Google Cloud Networking - ILB as Next Hop with Tags - With the internal TCP/UDP Load Balancer as a next-hop feature, you can configure your global VPC to keep traffic from clients to the virtualized network appliances in the same region, providing more cost control by avoiding inter-region traffic.

Using Impersonated Credentials for Google Cloud APIs and IDTokens - Samples which demonstrate getting and using impersonated credentials for Google Cloud Service Accounts.

App Development, Serverless, Databases, DevOps

Microservices architecture on Google Cloud - The evolution of technologies such as containerization, container orchestration, and cloud-native serverless services has given us the ability to develop distributed solutions based on microservices architectures that are both more scalable and more reliable.

Resolving 3 financial services challenges with Neo4j Aura on Google Cloud - Google Cloud and Neo4j explore how to solve top financial services challenges with graph data in the cloud.

Avoiding GCF anti-patterns part 5: How to run background processes correctly in Python - Fifth post in a series on how to avoid anti-patterns in Google Cloud Functions as seen by the Support team. This post explores how Python developers mistakenly use os.fork() or the multiprocessing.Process() package for async tasks; however, the best practice is to use Cloud Tasks.

Three reasons to peer SAP-managed apps with your Google Cloud services - Ensure reliable, secure, high-performance connectivity btw. your SAP managed apps & all your other apps & services running on Google Cloud with VPC network peering.

How to develop Global Multiplayer Games using Cloud Spanner - How Spanner makes multiplayer game development easier.

Getting Started with GCP: Building a Registration Application using App Engine and Cloud SQL - Introducing App Engine and Cloud SQL with example.

Logging, Monitoring & Alerting events on Google Cloud Storage Buckets - Setting up audit logs for Cloud Storage bucket.

DialogFlow Cost Optimization for CX - A guide on how to reduce cost for Google’s Dialogflow CX Conversational Agent.

Google Cloud IoT Core Authentication with Trusted Platform Module (TPM) - A simple demo describing a contrived way to provision and authenticate a device to Google IoT Core where the private key used for authentication is permanently embedded in hardware (a Trusted Platform Module (TPM)).

Sending mail from Google Cloud Build - A simple solution for sending messages from a GCP Cloud Build pipeline.

Big Data, Analytics, ML&AI

Processing billions of events in real time at Twitter - How Twitter processes 400 billion events in real time and generates petabyte (PB) scale data every day with the help of Pub/Sub, Cloud Storage and BigQuery.

An introduction to Monzo’s data stack - An overview of the modern data stack at Monzo bulit with GCP products.

Debunking myths about Python on Dataflow - Python developers have access to the greatest breadth of features when they use Dataflow for their data processing applications, contrary to popular belief.

Export Google Cloud data into Elastic Stack with Dataflow templates - Learn how to set up a streaming pipeline for Google Cloud data into Elastic Cloud and Elastic Stack with new purpose-built Dataflow templates.

Faster time to value with Data Analytics Design Patterns - Design Patterns provide customers with tools they need to accelerate time to value and implement common use cases so they can focus on innovation.

How I have optimized BigQuery costs for my company - 8 techniques to reduce your BigQuery bill.

Building a Data Vault using dbtvault with Google BigQuery - This article is a step by step tutorial implementing dbtvault with Google BigQuery.

How to extract real-time intraday data from Google Analytics 4 and Firebase in BigQuery - Bypassing automatic deletion of an intraday tables to get real time data from Firebase in BigQuery.

Sowing the seeds of ethical AI: 4 tasks to stay on track - Business leaders are eager to reap the benefits of AI, but pausing to ensure your AI models are delivering fair results will ensure long term success.

Cloud Storage as a File System in AI Training - This blog post introduces the feature Cloud Storage FUSE to Vertex AI and AI Platform users. This feature enables the training jobs on these platforms to read and write the data on Cloud Storage via a mounted file system.

Deploy ML models on Vertex AI using custom containers - This blog post covers the creation of a custom container that serves your model and deploying it on Vertex AI.

Adding Forecasting to your Looker Report and Dashboards - A new feature introduced in Looker recently is Forecasting, giving you the ability to forecast forward one or more measures in your look or dashboard based on historical data in your application or data warehouse.

Various

Innovators Gather in Force at Google Cloud Government and Education Summit - No Need for FOMO with On-Demand Viewing - Presents highlights from the Google Cloud Government and Education Summit and invites readers to view sessions on demand.

Taking customer conversations to the next level with AI-powered Business Messages - How businesses of all sizes can reach customers in new ways with AI-powered Business Messages from Google.

Why Sabre is betting against multi-cloud - An interview with Sabre's CIO Joe DiFonzo where he explains why their only choice of cloud provider is Google Cloud.

Slides, Videos, Audio

GCP Podcast - #285 Managing ML Lifecycles with Vertex AI with Erwin Huizenga.

Security Podcast - #43 Automation as Paved Roads in Cloud Enablement.

Releases

AI Platform Prediction - Runtime version 2.7 is now available.

Anthos clusters on bare metal - 1.7. Release 1.7.6 Anthos clusters on bare metal 1.7.6 is now available for download. Fixes: The following container image security vulnerabilities have been fixed: CVE-2021-30465 CVE-2021-37750 CVE-2021-41103. Known issues: When you upgrade Anthos clusters on bare metal from a version with a security patch to the next minor release, we recommend you upgrade to the highest patch version to ensure you have the latest security fixes. 1.9. Release 1.9.2 Anthos clusters on bare metal 1.9.2 is now available for download. Fixes: Updated preflight checks to use strict mode for decoding YAML to catch issues with indentation and misplaced fields in the cluster configuration file. Known issues: For information about the latest known issues, see Anthos on bare metal known issues in the Troubleshooting section.

Artifact Registry - v1beta2. Artifact Registry repositories with gcr.io domain support are now available in Preview.

Cloud Asset Inventory - The following resource types are now publicly available through the Analyze Policy APIs (AnalyzeIamPolicy and AnalyzeIamPolicyLongrunning): Assured Workloads assuredworkloads.googleapis.com/Workload DocumentAI documentai.googleapis.com/ProcessorVersion. The following resource types are now publicly available through the Export APIs (ExportAssets and BatchGetAssetsHistory) and the Feed API: Vertex AI aiplatform.googleapis.com/PipelineJob. The following resource types are now publicly available through the Analyze Policy APIs (AnalyzeIamPolicy and AnalyzeIamPolicyLongrunning): BigQuery bigquery.googleapis.com/Model Google Kubernetes Engine apps.k8s.io/Deployment apps.k8s.io/ReplicaSet batch.k8s.io/Job.

BI Engine - BigQuery BI Engine is now available in the Santiago (southamerica-west1) region.

BigQuery ML - BigQuery ML is now available in the Santiago (southamerica-west1) region.

BigQuery Transfer - BigQuery Data Transfer Service is now available in the Santiago (southamerica-west1) region.

BigQuery - Updated versions of ODBC and JDBC drivers for BigQuery are now available that include enhancements. BigQuery is now available in the Santiago (southamerica-west1) region.

BigTable - Cloud Bigtable is available in the southamerica-west1 (Santiago) region.

Cloud Composer - Cloud Composer 1.17.5 release started on November 16, 2021. (Cloud Composer 1) GCSfuse version updated to 37.0. (New environments only) Default values for maintenance windows are from 00:00:00 to 04:00:00 (GMT) on Sunday, Friday, and Saturday every week. New versions of Cloud Composer images: composer-1.17.5-airflow-2.1.4 composer-1.17.5-airflow-2.1.2 composer-1.17.5-airflow-2.0.2 composer-1.17.5-airflow-1.10.15 (default) composer-1.17.5-airflow-1.10.12 composer-1.17.5-airflow-1.10.14. Cloud Composer 1.13.0 has reached its end of full support period.

Compute Engine - Generally available: You can now configure N2, N2D, and C2 VMs with up to 100 Gbps of network bandwidth. Generally available: Santiago, Chile, South America southamerica-west1-a,b,c region has launched with E2, N2, and C2 VMs in all three zones. Generally available: You can now monitor health state change logs for VM instances in a managed instance group when you use application-based health checking. Generally available: N2D machine types running on third generation AMD EPYC Milan processors. Generally available: T2D Tau machine types are available in select regions and zones.

Data Fusion - Cloud Data Fusion is now available in the Santiago (southamerica-west1) region.

Cloud Dataflow - Dataflow is now available in Santiago (southamerica-west1).

Dataproc Metastore - v1beta1. Private Service Connect with Dataproc Metastore is available in Preview.

Dataproc - Dataproc is now available in the southamerica-west1 region (Santiago, Chile).

Deep Learning Containers - M86 release Upgraded all Ubuntu 18.04 LTS Deep Learning Container images to Ubuntu 20.04 LTS (see What is an Ubuntu LTS release?).

Deep Learning VM - M86 release Upgraded all Ubuntu 18.04 LTS Deep Learning VM images to Ubuntu 20.04 LTS (see What is an Ubuntu LTS release?).

Dialogflow Enterprise - Dialogflow CX Phone Gateway now supports call transfer. Dialogflow CX webhooks now support custom CA certificates. Dialogflow CX now supports agent backup.

Dialogflow - Dialogflow CX Phone Gateway now supports call transfer. Dialogflow CX webhooks now support custom CA certificates. Dialogflow CX now supports agent backup.

Cloud Functions - Cloud Functions now supports the following runtimes at the General Availability release level: Node.js 16 Go 1.16.

Google Kubernetes Engine - The 2021-R33 release notes for No channel were updated with the following additions: The following control plane and node versions are now available: 1.19.16-gke.1500 1.20.12-gke.1500 1.21.6-gke.1500. The southamerica-west1 region in Santiago, Chile is now available. Google Cloud Managed Service for Prometheus is now available in Preview. 2021-11-19 update: Added new control plane and node versions for the 2021-R33 release in No channel. (2021-R33) Version updates GKE cluster versions have been updated.

Google Kubernetes Engine Rapid - (2021-R33) Version updates Version 1.21.5-gke.1802 is now the default version in the Rapid channel.

Google Kubernetes Engine Regular - (2021-R33) Version updates Version 1.21.5-gke.1302 is now the default version in the Regular channel.

Google Kubernetes Engine Stable - (2021-R33) Version updates The following control plane and node versions are now available: 1.19.15-gke.1300 1.20.11-gke.1300 Version 1.19.14-gke.1900 is no longer available in the Stable channel.

Load Balancing - Cloud Load Balancing introduces a new version of the external HTTP(S) load balancer.

Cloud Memorystore - Added new Memorystore for Redis region: Santiago (southamerica-west1).

Cloud Monitoring - Cloud Monitoring now supports dashboard-wide grouping and filtering. Preview: Google Cloud Managed Service for Prometheus, Google Cloud's fully managed, Prometheus-compatible monitoring solution, is now available in Preview.

Notebooks - The autopackaging feature of the gcloud ai custom-jobs create command is generally available (GA). The gcloud ai customs-jobs local-run command is generally available (GA).

Cloud PubSub - Pub/Sub is now available in southamerica-west1 (Santiago).

Cloud Run - The following new region is now available: southamerica-west1.

Secret Manager - Secret Manager is now available in the Santiago (southamerica-west1) region.

Security Command Center - Security Command Center has launched Mute Findings in general availability.

Service Mesh - 1.11.x. 1.11.4-asm.5 is now available for managed Anthos Service Mesh and is rolling out into the Rapid Release Channel. Managed Anthos Service Mesh now supports Certificate Authority (CA) Service. Managed Anthos Service Mesh now supports GKE Autopilot as a preview feature in the Rapid Channel.

SAP Solutions - Backint agent for SAP HANA version 1.0.14 Version 1.0.14 of the Google Cloud Backint agent for SAP HANA is now available.

Cloud Spanner - Cloud Spanner regional instances can now be created in Santiago (southamerica-west1).

Cloud SQL Postgres - The following extensions in Cloud SQL for PostgreSQL are generally available: auto_explain. Support for southamerica-west1 (Santiago) region.

Cloud Storage - Public access preventionPreview now uses inherited in place of unspecified. Santiago region (southamerica-west1) launched.

Traffic Director - Traffic Director service security for GKE is now in General Availability.

Vertex AI - The autopackaging feature of the gcloud ai custom-jobs create command is generally available (GA). The gcloud ai customs-jobs local-run command is generally available (GA).

VPC Service Controls - General availability for the following integration: Contact Center AI Insights.

Virtual Private Cloud - For auto mode VPC networks, added a new subnet 10.194.0.0/20 for the Santiago southamerica-west1 region.

Cloud VPN - Cloud VPN is now available in region southamerica-west1 (Santiago, Chile).

Workflows - Workflows can be scheduled through the Workflows page in the Cloud Console. v1. The following functions have been added: sys.sleep_until — Suspends execution until the given time time.format — Formats timestamp as a human-readable string time.parse — Parses ISO 8601-compatible string into a timestamp.

If you have suggestion, feedback or link you want to share feel free to email me at zdenko@gcpweekly.com

Have a great week,

Zdenko