You build it, Google runs it (serverlessly) in containers

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Geshan Manandhar

Sr. Software Engineer @ Simply Wall St.

Hello!

I am Geshan Manandhar

• Sr. Software Engineer @ Simply Wall St.
• GDE for GCP since 2019, Docker Captain 2024

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• GDG Cloud Sydney Co-organizer
• Using Docker/containers since 2014
• Dabbled with K8s since 2015

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I work for Simply Wall St.

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Make confident investment decisions

I am from Kathmandu, Nepal

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Agenda

• Google's infrastructure is built to handle billions of users
• Containers/Docker and why use it
• Serverless and reasons to use it
• Containers without Kubernetes (and serverless)
• Google’s container runner service
• Demo
• Conclusion

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7 Services with more than 1 billion users

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Everything at Google runs in containers

• Containerization helps Google’s development teams move fast, deploy software efficiently, and operate at an unprecedented scale (billions of users).
• Google uses internal cluster management system Borg (dubbed the predecessor to Kubernetes)
• Kubernetes the de facto container orchestrator is an open-source modified version of Borg
• The main unit of operation is containers, so what are they?

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“A container is a standard unit of software that packages up code and all its dependencies so the application runs quickly and reliably from one computing environment to another.”

- Docker.com

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Why use Containers/Docker?

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Docker Image to running container

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Containers can be run serverlessly, then, what is serverless?

“Serverless computing is an application development and execution model that enables developers to build and run application code without provisioning or managing servers or backend infrastructure.”

- IBM

* Also important: With serverless, developers never pay for idle capacity.

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There are still servers,

you don’t have to manage them.

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Source: https://www.goodtechthings.com/ozymandiless/

Reasons to use Serverless

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More reasons: https://www.goodtechthings.com/what-lies-beneath/

Run Containers - no need to learn Kubernetes

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Kubernetes is complicated

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Cloud and containers without Kubernetes

• Kubernetes is complicated
• Focus on your application code and business logic, containerize the app and run it without Kubernetes (move to K8s later if needed)
• So, you build it and someone else runs/operates it
• Is there any option to do this?

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Google runs it in containers (serverlessly)

• Imagine Google (SREs) manage scaling for your apps
• You specify the CPU and memory per instance and the min (0 = serverless) and max number of instances
• Google auto-scales instances for your service
• As per the volume of requests based on CPU + other metrics every X seconds
• It is like having a separate K8s cluster for each service/ deployment
• Yes a service like that exists

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Google Cloud Run

• Cloud Run is a managed compute platform that automatically scales your stateless containers.
• Cloud Run is serverless: it abstracts away all infrastructure management, so you can focus on what matters most — building great applications.

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Cloud Run advantages

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Cloud Run advantages

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For more follow Cloud run release notes

“Cloud Run eliminated the need to add another engineer because we did not need to manage infrastructure or instances—it is just ‘set and forget’.” - Nik Kyriakidis, Lead Engineer, Halfbrick Studios �(The company behind the game Fruit Ninja, Jetpack Joyride, and other games)

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Docker image to running container on GCP

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Demo

• Repo: https://github.com/geshan/nodejs-postgres-cloud-run
• Cloud Run button
• Buildpack - no docker branch
• gcloud run deploy nodejs-postgres-buildpack --project=<project-id> --region=us-central1 --max-instances=2 --allow-unauthenticated --source .
• Check the cloudbiuld.yaml

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Demo - Cloud Run Button

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Demo - Deploy from source

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Aussie companies using Cloud Run

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Cloud Run can scale (hyper-scale)

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Ford (~20K software developers): 30 min video

Loreal (~90K employees): 15 min video

Cloud Run at a side project scale (ATJ)

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Top 3 takeaways/Conclusion

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Thanks! Any Questions?

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References

• https://blog.realkinetic.com/cloud-without-kubernetes-d0487a4ab345
• https://research.google/pubs/large-scale-cluster-management-at-google-with-borg/
• https://cloud.google.com/learn/what-are-containers
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ppH1NtJV_PM&t=1522s - Knative Cloud Run Container Contract
• https://www.docker.com/resources/what-container/
• https://www.ibm.com/topics/serverless
• https://www.atlassian.com/microservices/cloud-computing/containers-as-a-service
• https://www.ibm.com/topics/containers-as-a-service
• https://www.cloudflare.com/en-gb/learning/serverless/what-is-serverless/
• https://geshan.com.np/blog/2023/04/serverless-containers/
• https://www.bettyjunod.com/blog/kubernetes-is-not-the-point
• https://cloud.google.com/blog/products/serverless/a-developers-guide-to-new-features-in-cloud-run
• https://cloud.google.com/blog/products/serverless/how-the-bbc-uses-cloud-run-and-bigquery-to-process-logs
• https://cloud.google.com/customers/petcircle
• https://cloud.google.com/customers/halfbrick-studios
• https://cloud.google.com/customers/jayride
• https://cloud.google.com/containers?hl=en
• https://www.aquasec.com/cloud-native-academy/container-platforms/container-as-a-service/
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YA50fuOdaqQ - What's new in Cloud Run (Next 24)
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pw1OkO0b-kM - Accelerate your AI with Serverless (Next 24)
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4PBuQOCZtIg - Ford using Cloud run
• https://services.google.com/fh/files/misc/tei_of_cloudrun.pdf
• https://cloud.google.com/blog/products/serverless/loreal-combines-google-cloud-serverless-and-data-offerings
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=olGHj3j_hsY - Pinpoint climate risks to sustainable finance in the era of AI (.msci.com)
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l7tNx52bnsc
• https://cloud.google.com/customers/carrefourtaiwan
• https://www.gcppodcast.com/post/episode-236-ikea-retail-ingka-group-with-matt-lawson/
• https://github.com/steren/awesome-cloud-run
• https://devrant.com/rants/3775630/saw-this-on-linkedin

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Cloud Run users

• https://cloud.google.com/customers/aisin
• https://cloud.google.com/customers/smarthr
• https://cloud.google.com/customers/bonvies
• Aussie companies
• https://cloud.google.com/customers/petcircle
• https://cloud.google.com/customers/jayride
• https://cloud.google.com/customers/playground-xyz
• https://cloud.google.com/customers/tribes-ai
• https://cloud.google.com/customers/halfbrick-studios - fruit ninja

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Pictures credits

• https://pixabay.com/photos/container-ship-container-transport-6631117/
• https://pixabay.com/photos/scam-hacker-security-virus-fraud-4126798/
• https://pixabay.com/photos/dubai-skyscraper-metro-architecture-5082286/
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