[MUSIC PLAYING]
LAURENCE MORONEY: Today I'm meeting with Fatima Otori
to talk about Google Cloud Launcher
and how I could get my site into the cloud in less time than it
takes to order a tall Americano.
Fatima, so you work on Google Cloud Launcher.
FATIMA OTORI: Yes, I do.
LAURENCE MORONEY: Tell us all about it.
What does it do?
FATIMA OTORI: Google Cloud Launcher
is Google's implementation of a software marketplace.
And what that means is it's really an online store for VMs.
So these are VMs that run on top of Google Cloud
Platform and host or represent some
of the popular applications that you,
as an individual developer, or even businesses,
can come on there and create solutions for what they need.
LAURENCE MORONEY: So for example,
if I want to build a website with WordPress,
it's going to give me everything for that?
FATIMA OTORI: Yes, exactly.
So in Cloud Launcher today, we're
hosting a number of software packages.
Popular like WordPress, and then other ones
that are more enterprise related.
And so you can go on there and you
can find a WordPress VM that's really, essentially,
been preconfigured for you.
And so within a few clicks, you can
be up and running with your own personal website.
LAURENCE MORONEY: So that can be pretty complex, right?
There's the virtual machine with it's operating system,
and you're going to have the language,
like PHP, the database, the software, and all the bits
to link it all together.
And that can be done with one click type launch?
FATIMA OTORI: Yes.
So the advantage for Launcher is exactly
to take away that complexity from the end user.
And so when these VMs are packaged and supplied
by our third party providers, they take care of all that
for you.
So they come preconfigured with the OS, the database,
and any other application dependencies
that you would need.
So if you're running WordPress, your MySQL instance
is already preconfigured in that VM.
And so for you as an end user, you can really get up
and running within a few clicks.
You do have the flexibility to pick the size of your VM, which
is the size of your machine, based on how much you
think your workload will be.
But within a few clicks, you can deploy
and you can have a WordPress site up and running.
LAURENCE MORONEY: That is really cool.
Because I've built a few WordPress sites in my time,
and it's all that plumbing and all that getting stuff to work.
It's worth it in the end, because it's terrific,
but it's a lot of fiddlings.
FATIMA OTORI: It is.
And Cloud Launcher is really the easiest way for end users
to explore Google Cloud Platform.
And for that reason.
LAURENCE MORONEY: Cool.
So can I put you on the spot and ask you to demo it?
FATIMA OTORI: Of course.
That's why I brought my laptop.
LAURENCE MORONEY: You came prepared.
FATIMA OTORI: I came prepared.
So let me just log into my machine right now.
And so if you can see, I'm just going to easily access
the Cloud Launcher site by going to cloud.google.com/launcher.
That brings you to our cloud store.
As you can see, we're featuring a number of popular packages
up top.
But if you know what you're looking for,
like WordPress, we also have a search bar where you can go
and type in WordPress.
And you can see your different options for WordPress.
And so here you have three different options.
One for running just a single website, and then
a multi-site WordPress instance.
And so you're free to select either one.
LAURENCE MORONEY: Well, I'm not popular enough
to have a multi-site.
So I think I'll just stick with the single one.
FATIMA OTORI: That's fine.
OK, so I'm going to select the single site WordPress VM.
LAURENCE MORONEY: OK.
FATIMA OTORI: As we mentioned before,
you can see on the right-hand side here
what's contained in this VM.
So it tells you what operating system is included.
It also gives you information about the database
that's been preconfigured.
The one that I selected is an open source version
of WordPress-- so WordPress is open source--
and so there's no pricing attached to the image itself.
LAURENCE MORONEY: Right.
FATIMA OTORI: Of course, there is still the underlying compute
costs, and so--
LAURENCE MORONEY: That's why we're
asked to pick the different machine size.
FATIMA OTORI: Exactly.
And so we give you an estimate of pricing here as well.
LAURENCE MORONEY: Got it.
FATIMA OTORI: As you'll see on the site,
we now have commercial solutions on Cloud Launcher where
there is a cost for licensing those things.
LAURENCE MORONEY: And I assume some operating systems also
have a cost associated with them--
FATIMA OTORI: Oh, that's true.
LAURENCE MORONEY: --and that would be included there.
OK.
Really neat.
So let's build a WordPress.
FATIMA OTORI: Yeah.
And so as you can see, you scroll down.
And really what's contained on this site
is tutorials and documentations on how to get started.
But if you're comfortable with that,
you can simply click this button that
says Launch on Compute Engine.
And so we've done that.
And it's opening up my Developer console.
LAURENCE MORONEY: Associate it with a project.
FATIMA OTORI: Exactly.
And so I'll just go and pick a project of mine.
And so--
LAURENCE MORONEY: I like the icon, the little rocket.
FATIMA OTORI: Oh, yes.
We thought that was cute.
And so now, before I hit the button to deploy,
if I want to give my deployment a new name, I can.
I select the zone that I want my instance to be spun up on.
And my machine size, I have flexibility
to select that as well.
I'll just go ahead and pick a more sizable image.
LAURENCE MORONEY: Because you're going to have a popular site.
FATIMA OTORI: Yes, of course.
And then I also have my choice of disk.
I'll leave it as is.
And then you have some networking firewall options
as well, which I won't change at the time.
So I go ahead and click Deploy.
And give that a few minutes to pop up.
Cloud Launcher now supports Deployment Manager internally.
And so what this allows you to do
is to be able to save any configuration
of your environment that you've created,
and use that template anywhere else on Google Cloud Platform.
Also, if you're doing more than just
deploying single VM instance, you
can easily manage it through this config UI
to specify how many instances of a particular solution you want.
LAURENCE MORONEY: And now it's just creating everything,
right?
FATIMA OTORI: Yes.
LAURENCE MORONEY: Setting up the VM,
setting up the-- I see the firewall on the--
FATIMA OTORI: Yes.
LAURENCE MORONEY: Cool.
FATIMA OTORI: So while that is spinning up,
I just want to go point out some of the other commercial
solutions that we have available on Launcher.
So I'll click Enterprise DB, which is our Enterprise
Postgres option in Launcher.
And I just wanted to point out, so this one is not open source.
It actually has a price attached to it.
But just as you saw, you can see the breakdown of the pricing.
And so this is actually strong for our users
because they want to know what they're paying for before they
actually invest.
LAURENCE MORONEY: Help you to budget up front, right?
FATIMA OTORI: Exactly.
And with this solution, you can get full documentation
and tutorials of how to use this particular solution.
And you also have a direct link to our partner support.
And so if you want to call support,
here's a link for you to do so.
LAURENCE MORONEY: Nice.
FATIMA OTORI: And so it's up and running.
And I'll just go ahead and actually just go to the site
itself.
And here you go.
Your blog is up and running.
Of course, you have the Admin console if you want to go
and actually publish content or design your blog
however you want it.
LAURENCE MORONEY: Really from nothing,
you have a full WordPress-based infrastructure
built in just a few minutes.
FATIMA OTORI: Exactly.
LAURENCE MORONEY: So this is great stuff for me
as a developer, but what if I'm an enterprise?
What if I have a lot of these things to deploy?
Is there an offering?
FATIMA OTORI: Actually, that's a very good question,
because traditionally, of course,
developers are always chomping at the bit
to see what's the latest and greatest.
But you know, surprisingly, we're
seeing that enterprises are coming to or taking advantage
of marketplace such as Cloud Launcher
to test out your new solutions.
Not only to test, but also when they
do get ready to deploy something in production,
they can do that right from the Cloud Launcher today.
And so today in Cloud Launcher, we are hosting just single VMs,
but we have now Deployment Manager.
And so think of Deployment Manager
as the enabler to deploying many, many instances
versus just that one.
Which is what enterprises are looking for.
Not only deployment, being able to manage it centrally as well.
LAURENCE MORONEY: And it's a great way
to test a new software stack without investing
in all the hardware, right?
FATIMA OTORI: That's exactly right.
And we see enterprises taking advantage of that as well.
LAURENCE MORONEY: Cool.
Interesting.
So where do you fit into all of this, Fatima?
What do you do here at Google?
FATIMA OTORI: Yeah.
So I work on a team called the Google Cloud Partner Team.
And our main job, our sole job, is
to bring the best of breed partners
to Google Cloud Platform to enable our end users
freedom of choice.
I work primarily with the partners
that we onboard onto the Cloud Launcher.
And we do everything from verifying these packages,
making sure that they're up-to-date
and they are what they say-- they
do what they say they will do on Google Cloud Platform.
So we work with partners to bring that solution
to the store, but then we also help them spread their message,
and what the right way to use the solution
is to the end user.
LAURENCE MORONEY: Actually, you bring up an interesting point,
because when you're saying it's like you want
to verify that it's the right thing,
like if I'm getting WordPress, that really is WordPress.
But what also then happens, like if I--
we've now just built a WordPress site together.
What happens then when WordPress gets updated?
Do I need to go and start fiddling to update?
FATIMA OTORI: No, that's a good question.
And I think this is something that separates the experience
that users get from using Cloud Launcher
versus some other marketplaces they may know out there.
And so going back to what we do as a Cloud Platform Partner
Team, all the partners that we bring on board,
we make sure that it's not just a transactional relationship,
right?
The images they provide for us in the store,
we make sure that when they do have an update on there,
they notify Google.
I like to use the analogy of an app store.
Today when you go to an app store, you download an app.
You install it on your phone.
When there are updates, you get push notification.
LAURENCE MORONEY: Got it.
FATIMA OTORI: Same thing on Cloud Launcher.
We make sure that our partners are able to adequately notify
any of the users who's using their solution on Cloud
Launcher.
And so this is the support mechanism
that we've built into Cloud Launcher.
LAURENCE MORONEY: Very cool.
So yeah, because like if I'm building something,
I've got multiple pieces of software in the stack.
There's the operating system, the language, the database,
the software tool itself.
And any of these can have security patches, and that--
FATIMA OTORI: Yeah, exactly.
That's one of the main, if I could say,
disadvantages of using some software marketplaces,
because traditionally, what we've seen is that people go
and they deploy software.
The first version is great.
And they're happy, and their project is up and running.
But pretty soon, security vulnerabilities pop up
and they don't get notified.
And so essentially, we say from the second
they deploy that software, it's essentially dead, right?
And we're trying to avoid that problem with Cloud Launcher.
And so they would get automatic updates
if there's any change to the solution that they're running.
LAURENCE MORONEY: So yeah.
If I'm an IT admin and I've got hundreds of sites
that I'm looking after, one personal WordPress site is one
thing, but if I've got hundreds of them,
I need to know which ones are working,
which ones need updates.
And so you're pushing updates about that to me.
FATIMA OTORI: Yes, exactly.
LAURENCE MORONEY: That's really cool.
How would I get started if I want
to build my own WordPress instead
of having you do it for me?
FATIMA OTORI: You can go up to cloud.google.com/launcher
and create your own Google account.
And you have free will to use what you see there
in the Cloud Store.
LAURENCE MORONEY: Nice.
So cloud.google.com/launcher.
So go check it out now.
Maybe you'll build a wonderful site on WordPress
or on something else.
So please let us know if you've any questions for me
or if you've any questions for Fatima.
Let us know on the comments below.
And we'd love to see what you build.
Thank you.