Make a Home in the Cloud ​

I started my first private project in the cloud using GCP from Google. My plan was to do the full tour. Starting with a Linux VM and going step by step to the added value functions around AI and what have you.

• Creating an initial VM on GCP was simple. The basic steps are well covered in mandatory tutorials.

• By chance I learned that GCP blocks outgoing mail traffic on port 25. So you need a provider for outgoing e-mail. Time to relearn Postfix configuration.

• With the server came a free static IP address. For secure communication, you need a certificate, for a certificate you need a domain name, and for the domain name you have to set up proper DNS records.

Why GCP? ​

I had to start with something. The three big players are Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud Platform. The basic offerings of the cloud providers seem comparable. Of course, Azure has its strength when it comes to integrating Office and Windows. Amazon was the pioneer and has the largest market share – but big & prominent might not be attractive per se. I had to start with one of them and chose Google out of personal affection.

Take the Tour Bottom Up? ​

As a student, I thought it would be cool to have a server that was always up and running and always connected to the internet. I thought I needed a root server with a hoster, but I never went for it. Now, some thirty years later, I have a server set up in the cloud.

Not bare metal, but a VM. No Kubernetes cluster, no cloud functions. Not yet.

Starting with the lower levels of infrastructure is certainly not the recommended path if you want to take advantage of a cloud environment. Exploration takes a lot of time and reveals many low-level things that will most likely not be used later. On the other hand, it gives you a deep understanding of the basics, which almost always makes dealing with higher abstractions easier.