Cloud Pro: Google Cloud Storage: Choose, Compare and Launch

What's inside

1. Level 1: Every Google Cloud Storage Service on One PageFree
   Learn the full Google Cloud storage range grouped into object, block, file, high-performance file, archive, data transfer and backup, including former names and which services are closed or being phased out for new customers.
2. Level 2: The Standard Data ProfileFree
   Build a reusable data profile that records size and growth, access type and protocol, IOPS, throughput and latency, read/write pattern, durability, availability, consistency, sharing, retention, residency and cost model, so that every later choice is measured against the same record.
3. Level 3: Cloud Storage: Classes, Autoclass and Limits
   Learn what Cloud Storage is, how the Standard, Nearline, Coldline and Archive classes and Autoclass differ, which workloads fit object storage, and the dated limits that cause trouble in practice.
4. Level 4: Cloud Storage: Locations, Replication and Anywhere Cache
   Compare regional, dual-region and multi-region buckets, turbo replication and Anywhere Cache, and see how each one changes availability, latency, residency and network cost.
5. Level 5: Cloud Storage: Costs, Operations and Quick Start
   Complete the nine-part Cloud Storage review with cost levers, the shared responsibility split, a pros and cons table, real uses, and a quick start that creates and then removes a bucket with gcloud and Terraform.
6. Level 6: Persistent Disk: The Original Block Storage
   Learn what Persistent Disk offers (standard, balanced, SSD, extreme, and regional disks), where it still fits next to Hyperdisk, and the limits, costs and snapshots that matter.
7. Level 7: Hyperdisk Balanced and Balanced High Availability
   Learn how Hyperdisk Balanced provisions capacity, IOPS and throughput separately, how Balanced High Availability replicates across two zones, and how both fit general-purpose and database workloads.
8. Level 8: Hyperdisk Extreme and Hyperdisk Throughput
   Compare Hyperdisk Extreme, built for the highest IOPS at sub-millisecond latency, with Hyperdisk Throughput, built for cheap sequential bandwidth for analytics and streaming.
9. Level 9: Hyperdisk ML for Model Loading
   Learn how Hyperdisk ML serves model weights and datasets read-only to many instances at high read throughput, and how it compares with Cloud Storage plus caching for AI inference and training.
10. Level 10: Local SSD: Fast, Close and Temporary
    Learn what Local SSD gives you (very low latency and high IOPS on storage that does not outlive the VM), when data survives and when it is lost, and how to design around that.
11. Level 11: Filestore Tiers
    Work through Filestore, the managed NFS service, comparing its tiers (Basic, Zonal, Regional and Enterprise) on capacity, performance, availability and cost.
12. Level 12: Google Cloud NetApp Volumes
    Learn how NetApp Volumes provides managed NFS and SMB with ONTAP features such as snapshots, clones and replication, and when that is a better choice than Filestore.
13. Level 13: Managed Lustre for HPC and AI
    Learn how Google Cloud Managed Lustre delivers a parallel file system with throughput tiers per TiB, and where it fits for training, checkpointing and HPC scratch.
14. Level 14: Parallelstore and Its Phase-Out
    Learn what Parallelstore is, why access now needs allowlisting while Google directs new customers to Managed Lustre, and how existing users should plan their move.
15. Level 15: Storage Transfer Service
    Learn how Storage Transfer Service moves data online from other clouds, HTTP sources, on-premises file systems through agents, and between buckets, with scheduling, filters and integrity checks.
16. Level 16: Transfer Appliance
    Learn when shipping data on a Transfer Appliance beats sending it over the network, and how ordering, capture, shipping, encryption and upload work from start to finish.
17. Level 17: Backup and DR Service
    Learn how Backup and DR Service protects Compute Engine, databases and file workloads with backup plans, backup vaults and immutable, enforced retention, and how it differs from plain snapshots.
18. Level 18: Redundancy and Disaster Recovery Across Services
    Compare zonal, regional, dual-region and multi-region redundancy, together with snapshots, replication and backups, across all services, and build disaster recovery designs that meet stated RPO and RTO targets.
19. Level 19: Security, Encryption and Access Control
    Apply IAM, uniform bucket-level access, Google-managed, customer-managed (CMEK) and customer-supplied (CSEK) encryption keys, VPC Service Controls, retention locks and audit logging consistently across storage services.
20. Level 20: Lifecycle and Tiering Strategies
    Design data lifecycles that move data between classes and services over time, using lifecycle rules, Autoclass, snapshot schedules and file-to-object tiering, without causing early-deletion or retrieval charges.
21. Level 21: A Worked Total Cost, Line by Line
    Build a dated 12-month total cost for one realistic workload across the storage services it touches, counting capacity, provisioned performance, operations, retrieval, minimum storage durations, replication, egress, snapshots and backups, so the bill holds no surprises.
22. Level 22: Fair Benchmarking Without Fooling Yourself
    Design and run storage benchmarks that match the workload's real access pattern, so results from block, file and object services, or from different clouds, can be fairly compared.
23. Level 23: Migration and Transfer Planning
    Plan how data actually gets into, between and out of Google Cloud storage: pick online transfer, Storage Transfer Service, Transfer Appliance or application-level copy, and decide on the cutover and validation approach.
24. Level 24: The Weighted Selection Scorecard
    Turn the standard data profile into a weighted scorecard that marks hard requirements as pass/fail gates and scores the rest, so a storage choice comes from explicit priorities and not from habit.
25. Level 25: Mapping Services Across Clouds
    Map each candidate Google Cloud storage service to its nearest equivalent on another cloud, and record where the match is close, partial or missing.
26. Level 26: Scoring Google Cloud Against Another Cloud
    Score the best Google Cloud option and the best option on another cloud with the same scorecard, using dated prices, limits and benchmark evidence, and explain the outcome honestly.
27. Level 27: Risk, Lock-in and Re-review Triggers
    Stress-test the chosen design against the risks that change storage decisions over time: services closing to new customers, price and limit changes, lock-in, and exit cost.
28. Level 28: Final Challenge: The Decision Workshop Exam
    Bring the whole course together in a decision workshop: profile a new workload, shortlist from the full service map, score, cost, compare with another cloud, and produce a one-page selection record that can be defended.

Access

The first 2 levels are free with a free account. Every level, the podcast edition and the AI tutor come with All Access at £4.99/month or any Creator plan — see pricing.

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