Introduction to GCP

The first service that Google launched was its eponymous search engine. That was back in 1998, during a time in which ordinary people were starting to use the internet in large numbers. The very first server (http://infolab.stanford.edu/pub/voy/museum/pictures/display/0-4-Google.htm) that founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin used for Google featured 10 4 GB HDDs, and their hardware was held in a frame made out of LEGO bricks! Their first server ran on Stanford University’s networking infrastructure and premises.

Google’s first service that was specifically targeted to business customers was its AdWords advertising platform, now known as Google Ads (https://ads.google.com/home/). In the years since, it has launched a handful of services that are still very popular, such as Gmail, and it has killed a much greater number of services (https://killedbygoogle.com/).

One collection of services that should hopefully endure and evolve for many years to...