When exploring Google App Engine (GAE) as part of your Google Cloud learning journey, especially for the Google Cloud Digital Leader Certification, it becomes clear that while GAE is a powerful PaaS solution, it has a key limitation: programming language compatibility. This limitation paved the way for a more flexible, container-native solution—Google Cloud Run.
Google Cloud Run leverages Serverless Technology with world of Containers. Developers can code in any language of their choice if they can build a container image from it. This flexibility makes Cloud Run a major upgrade over traditional PaaS solutions.
Cloud Run Billing Options
Cloud Run offers two billing modes, helping businesses optimize cost for different workload patterns:
1. Request-Based Billing
- You only pay when your app is actively processing requests.
- Ideal for applications with unpredictable or low traffic.
2. Instance-Based Billing
Useful for reducing cold starts or keeping minimal instances warm. GCR has its strengths, mainly that it is stateless and is the quickest way to set up applications on containers.
Scale to Zero: One of Cloud Run’s Best Cost-Saving Features
If there are no incoming requests, Cloud Run automatically removes all running instances—this is known as scale to zero.
When a new request arrives after a period of inactivity, Cloud Run launches a new container instance. Depending on how quickly your container starts, the first request may experience increased latency—commonly referred to as a cold start.
This behavior is central to:
- Serverless cost efficiency
- Event-driven architecture design
- Managing workloads in the Cloud Digital Leader exam scenarios
Leave a comment