Networking in Google Cloud — Things to check out to catch up -’24 edition

2024 will be a very active year, I mean across the spectrum of services and the continued growth of AI. A lot of things have improved/changed/are changing. I’ve looked at a lot of material out there and it’s good to a certain point, it gets you there but it’s not where it should be. Last year I brought you the article 10+ DevOps & SRE resources everyone should check out.

So here are things you should catch up on for networking in Google Cloud. (I’ll update new stuff every month for ‘24)

Let’s start — From ‘23

1 # Duet AI — Intro to your AI assistant in Google Cloud. Check out some basic intro into Duet AI for networking. Documentation — Explain and customize cloud networking with Duet AI Hand-on labs — https://www.cloudskillsboost.google/course_templates/884 Youtube — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZmTU748YsM

2 # IPv6 support — IPv6 is supported in a dual-stack configuration. You can also use IPv6 on your load balancers. Documentation — IPv6 subnet ranges

3 # Private Service Connect — This provides you the ability to connect to services privately from service producer networks using and IP address from you own VPC network. No complicated VPN or VPC network peering required. It support multiple use cases and features like, multi regional access, endpoint, backend, interfaces have be added\previewed and it’s getting better. Documentation — Private Service Connect YouTube — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8sGs3b5zFOE

4 # Cross-Cloud Interconnect — This allows you to created a direct stable connections to another cloud provided at a colocation. This expands the Cloud-Interconnect family which provide stable connectivity to on-premises environments Documentation — Cross-Cloud Interconnect overview Video — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W-fVLyCQ2kA

5# Cloud Firewall Plus (IPS support) — This enhanced firewall capability by providing mative intergration with Palo Alto into your environment. You can enable this without redesigning your VPC and leverage IPS capability to enhance you security poster. Documentation — IPS overview Blog — Introducing Google Cloud Firewall Plus with intrusion prevention YouTube — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p7JKjFdDeqE

6 # Network Connectivity Center (VPC spoke support). — This may help you get around VPN network Peering limitation (25 VPC limit) and non transitive routing. Documentation — VPC spokes overview YouTube demo — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x6P3NwiPmP4 Codelab —NCC VPC as a Spoke

7 # Cross-Cloud Network — This leverages Google’s Global network to provide any-to any- connectivity using Google Global backbone. Documentation — Modernize your network with Cross-Cloud Network Design Doc — Cross-Cloud Network Solution Brief

8 # GKE Gateway Ingress Support — Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE) implementation of the Kubernetes Gateway API using the GKE Gateway controller. Documentation — Gateway Blog — Ingress traffic to your GKE fleet with the Multi-cluster Gateway controller, now GA

9 # Private NAT — Private NAT enables private-to-private translations across Google Cloud networks. Documentation — Private NAT

10 # Load balancers — A staple in designing you cloud network to distribute traffic to your workloads. They were some additional and adjustment to the naming. Documentation — Choosing a load balancer

11 # DNS — Core service to handle name to IP resolution. Google Cloud can support complex use cased for DNS. Documentation — Best practices for Cloud DNS Video- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hOUlt9Nylq8

Bonus Advanced networking demos : https://goo.gle/AdvancedNetworking

Advanced networking demo series: This YouTube series focused on L200+ level networking and networking security demo. Check out current playlist here. Advanced Networking demo series playlist

Architecture Center updates >> All updates generally — https://cloud.google.com/architecture/release-notes

Document archetypes — Google Cloud deployment archetypes

Networking Architecture doc sets #1 — Designing networks for migrating enterprise workloads: Architectural approaches #2 — Networking for secure intra-cloud access: Reference architectures #3 — Networking for internet-facing application delivery: Reference architectures #4 —Networking for hybrid and multi-cloud workloads: Reference architectures

TCO report # The Economic Advantage of Google Cloud’s Advanced Networking Services

My external content — Github

Product release notes : Checkout out all release notes

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