Part 3. Computing

Now that we’ve gone through ways to store data, it’s time to think about the various computing options we can use to interact with that data.

Similar to storage systems, quite a few computing options are available, each with its own benefits and drawbacks. Each of these options allows you to express the computational work to be done using different layers of abstraction, from the lowest level (working with a virtual machine) all the way up to a single JavaScript function running in the cloud.

In this part of the book, we’ll look at the various computing environments and dig down into how they all work. Some of these might feel familiar if you’ve worked with any sort of server before (for example, Compute Engine in chapter 9, which just hands you a virtual server), whereas others might seem foreign (for example, App Engine in chapter 11, which is a full-featured hosting environment), but it’s important to understand the differences to make an informed decision when it comes time to build your next project.

And finally, as an added bonus, in chapter 13 we’ll explore how you can use Cloud DNS to give human-readable names to all the computing resources you end up creating over time.