Top 3 Developer tools in GCP – Cloud SDK, Cloud Build & Google Cloud Deploy
As a developer, you need actionable insights throughout the entire software lifecycle. You also need developer tools that enable you to integrate from one phase of the lifecycle to the next. In this way, you can continuously iterate and improve on your applications. Google Cloud avails powerful developer tools to enable you to develop, deploy, and debug on the cloud. Complementing these tools is an amazing software on which you build and deploy your applications. At the heart of these tools are Cloud SDK, Cloud Build, and Google Cloud Deploy. Let’s look at what they are and how they enable GCP to give you a state-of-the-art development environment.
Developer tools in GCP – Cloud SDK
Cloud SDK contains a set of developer tools and libraries that enable you to manage your resources and applications on GCP. These tools include command-line tools such as gcloud, gsutil, and bq. Cloud SDK allows you to access BigQuery, Compute Engine, and Cloud Storage from the command line. The bq tool is pivotal for BigQuery to create and get information about resources, load and query data, and use the BigQuery data transfer service. It also allows you to run these tools interactively or via automated scripts. Find more about BigQuery in our blog post – Data Warehousing with BigQuery.
With Cloud SDK, you can modify and develop applications against your cloud resources using the command line. It provides more options than the GCP console as well as allowing you to script your actions, log, and audit them – to help you monitor your progress. It also contains client libraries for Java, Python, Node.js, Ruby, Go, and C++.
Developer tools in GCP – Cloud Build
Cloud Build is a developer tool, which provides a serverless CI/CD platform for DevOps to enable developers to quickly build, test, and deploy applications. It supports popular programming languages including Java, Go, Node.js, and more. Cloud Build significantly cuts down build time by providing direct access to high-CPU virtual machines, in which you can run your cache or source code and builds. You can also create pipelines to automate deployment.
Cloud Build is integrated with GKE, App Engine, Cloud Functions, and Firebase that support quick and efficient deployments. Cloud build also has multi-cloud support – enabling developers to integrate multiple clouds into their CI/CD pipeline.
Cloud Build is integrated with security tools that allow you to scan for vulnerabilities in your workload. Vulnerable images are automatically blocked from deployment. It also blocks public IPs from accessing your pipeline via built-in support for VPC-Peering and VPC-Service Controls.
Developer tools in GCP – Google Cloud Deploy
Google Cloud Deploy is a streamlined, fully managed continuous delivery solution for GKE. Multiple enterprises are moving to the cloud and adopting DevOps as a way to deliver better software faster. Google Cloud Deploy as a developer tool, addresses the challenges associated with this by providing a fully managed and scalable service, built-in security controls, and seamless integration with your existing DevOps ecosystem.
With Google Cloud Deploy, there is no need for infrastructure management, as the service is fully managed by Google. The size of your enterprise does not matter, Cloud Deploy seamlessly scales your delivery process. When your operation up-scales and the pipelines become numerous, Cloud Deploy provides a centralized view of all your pipelines. It leverages IAM for granting granular access roles and audit logs to ensure security.