GCP Cloud Services Cheat Sheet

Updated 2026-03-17

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Google Cloud Platform (GCP) provides a comprehensive ecosystem of cloud services spanning compute, storage, databases, networking, security, and data analytics. As a fully-managed cloud provider, GCP abstracts infrastructure complexity while giving developers fine-grained control over resources when needed. Two critical mental models underpin GCP services: global resources (like IAM and Cloud Storage) that span regions, and regional/zonal resources (like Compute Engine and Cloud SQL) that remain within specific geographic boundaries. Understanding this distinction helps you architect for both performance and compliance—global services optimize for availability and durability, while regional services optimize for latency and data residency requirements. The service boundaries matter: choosing a regional database over a global one affects failover, consistency guarantees, and where your data legally resides.

What This Cheat Sheet Covers

This topic spans 13 focused tables and 133 indexed concepts. Below is a complete table-by-table outline of this topic, spanning foundational concepts through advanced details.

Table 1: Compute ServicesTable 2: Storage ServicesTable 3: Database ServicesTable 4: Networking FundamentalsTable 5: Load BalancingTable 6: Container & OrchestrationTable 7: Serverless ComputeTable 8: Data Processing & AnalyticsTable 9: API Management & IntegrationTable 10: Security & IdentityTable 11: Operations & MonitoringTable 12: CI/CD & DeploymentTable 13: Advanced Networking

Table 1: Compute Services

Service	Example	Description
Compute Engine	`gcloud compute instances create my-vm --machine-type=e2-medium --zone=us-central1-a`	• Customizable virtual machines running Linux or Windows with choice of predefined or custom machine types • supports various CPU architectures including N1, N2, N2D, E2, C2, and GPU-attached instances.
Machine types	`n2-standard-4` (4 vCPUs, 16 GB) `e2-micro` (2 vCPUs, 1 GB)	• Predefined configurations of vCPU and memory • general-purpose (E2, N1, N2, N2D), compute-optimized (C2, C3), memory-optimized (M1, M2, M3), and accelerator-optimized (A2, A3) families available.
Preemptible VMs	`--preemptible` flag	• Short-lived instances at up to 80% discount that Google can terminate with 30-second notice • ideal for fault-tolerant batch jobs and stateless workloads.
Spot VMs	`--provisioning-model=SPOT`	• Evolution of preemptible VMs with no maximum runtime limit • can run indefinitely until capacity is reclaimed but still interruptible.
Instance templates	`gcloud compute instance-templates create web-template --machine-type=n2-standard-2`	• Reusable VM configuration blueprints defining machine type, boot disk, network settings • used by managed instance groups for autoscaling.
Managed instance groups (MIGs)	`gcloud compute instance-groups managed create my-mig --template=web-template --size=3`	Collection of identical VMs managed as a unit with autoscaling, auto-healing, load balancing, and rolling updates.

Table 1: Compute Services

Service	Example	Description
Compute Engine	`gcloud compute instances create my-vm --machine-type=e2-medium --zone=us-central1-a`	• Customizable virtual machines running Linux or Windows with choice of predefined or custom machine types • supports various CPU architectures including N1, N2, N2D, E2, C2, and GPU-attached instances.
Machine types	`n2-standard-4` (4 vCPUs, 16 GB) `e2-micro` (2 vCPUs, 1 GB)	• Predefined configurations of vCPU and memory • general-purpose (E2, N1, N2, N2D), compute-optimized (C2, C3), memory-optimized (M1, M2, M3), and accelerator-optimized (A2, A3) families available.
Preemptible VMs	`--preemptible` flag	• Short-lived instances at up to 80% discount that Google can terminate with 30-second notice • ideal for fault-tolerant batch jobs and stateless workloads.
Spot VMs	`--provisioning-model=SPOT`	• Evolution of preemptible VMs with no maximum runtime limit • can run indefinitely until capacity is reclaimed but still interruptible.
Instance templates	`gcloud compute instance-templates create web-template --machine-type=n2-standard-2`	• Reusable VM configuration blueprints defining machine type, boot disk, network settings • used by managed instance groups for autoscaling.
Managed instance groups (MIGs)	`gcloud compute instance-groups managed create my-mig --template=web-template --size=3`	Collection of identical VMs managed as a unit with autoscaling, auto-healing, load balancing, and rolling updates.