What is Google App Engine?

| Definition from TechTarget 03/05/24, 4:51 PM

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Google App Engine

! By Rahul Awati Ben Lutkevich, Site Editor

" What is Google App Engine?

# Google App Engine (GAE) is a platform-as-a-service (PaaS) product that enables web app
developers and enterprises to build, deploy and host scalable, high-performance applications
$ in Google's fully managed cloud environment without having to worry about infrastructure

% provisioning or management.

GAE is Google's fully managed and serverless application development platform. It handles Sponsored News

all the work of uploading and running the code on Google Cloud. GAE's flexible environment
Use Real-World Data to Modernize Business-
provisions all the necessary infrastructure based on the central processing unit (CPU) and Critical Apps
–Dell Technologies
memory requirements specified by the developer.
Modernize Apps with a Single Architecture for
VMs and Containers
With GAE, developers can create applications in multiple supported languages or run –Dell Technologies

custom containers in a preferred language or framework. Each language has a software

See More
development kit (SDK) and runtime to enable app development and testing. GAE also
provides a wide range of developer tools to simplify app development, testing, debugging,
Vendor Resources
deployment and performance monitoring.
From ITSM to ROI

GAE is ideal for applications designed using a microservices architecture, a development –Freshworks

paradigm where an application consists of multiple small, loosely coupled services that can
communicate with each other via a technology-agnostic protocol but can also be deployed
independently.

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What is Google App Engine? | Definition from TechTarget 03/05/24, 4:51 PM

What are Microservices? Microservices vs. Monolithic App Architectu…

How is Google App Engine used?

GAE is a fully managed, serverless platform that is used to host, build and deploy web
applications at any scale. Users can create a GAE account, set up an SDK and write
application source code by choosing one of several popular programming languages,
libraries and frameworks. They can then use GAE to test and deploy the code in the cloud.

One way to use GAE is to build scalable applications that adapt to workloads as needed.
GAE will provision all the required servers and also scale app instances based on demand.
Application testing is another way to use GAE. Users can route traffic to different application
versions to A/B test them and see which version performs better under various workloads.

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' Amazon Elastic Beanstalk is a rival platform-as-a-service to Google App Engine. It is compatible with
different programming languages and runtimes than GAE.

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What is Google App Engine? | Definition from TechTarget 03/05/24, 4:51 PM

Google App Engine apps

A GAE app is a top-level container. It includes at least one service, version and a single
application resource. The resource consists of one or more services that can be configured
to use different runtimes and operate at different performance levels. In addition, different
versions of a service can be deployed to run within instances, depending on how much traffic
it is configured to handle.

With GAE, different versions of an app can be hosted in the Google Cloud. GAE allows
developers to split traffic between these different versions for A/B testing and feature rollout.
Apps can also be debugged within GAE in any stage, including production.

Environments available in Google App Engine

GAE provides two types of app development environments. Developers can choose either
environment depending on their needs and app type. They can also use both environments
simultaneously to combine the benefits of each environment.

In the standard environment, applications run in a sandbox using the runtime environment
of one of the languages supported by GAE. The environment is suitable for applications that
need to scale rapidly (up or down) in response to sudden or extreme traffic spikes. It can
also be used for applications that are intended to run for free or at very low cost.

The standard GAE environment offers seconds-level instance startup times and deployment
times, supports background threads and can be scaled to zero. It includes automatic in-place
security patches and allows developers to access many Google Cloud application
programming interfaces (APIs) and services, including Cloud Storage, Cloud SQL and
Google Tasks.

The GAE flexible environment automatically scales apps up or down while also balancing
the load. It allows developers to customize the runtimes provided for the supported
languages or provide their own runtime by supplying a custom Docker image or Dockerfile.

The environment is suitable for many kinds of apps, including apps that do the following:

Receive consistent traffic.

Experience regular traffic fluctuations.

Run in a Docker container with a custom runtime or source code written in other
programming languages.

Use frameworks with native code.

Access Google Cloud project resources residing in the Google Compute Engine network.

The flexible GAE environment offers minutes-level instance startup times and deployment
times, supports background threads and processes, and offers both manual and automatic
scaling. It includes automatic in-place security patches and supports Secure Shell, or SSH,
debugging. In this environment, developers can modify the runtime (through Dockerfile) and
access many Google Cloud APIs and services, including Cloud Storage, Cloud SQL, and
Google Tasks.

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What is Google App Engine? | Definition from TechTarget 03/05/24, 4:51 PM

&

' Serverless platforms like Google App Engine are inherently scalable and allow for quick software
deployments. See 10 common uses.

What are GAE's key features?

The key features of GAE are:

API selection. GAE provides several built-in APIs, including the following:

Blobstore for serving large data objects.

GAE Cloud Storage to read and write files during app runtime.

Page Speed Service for automatically speeding up webpage load times.

URL Fetch Service to issue HTTP requests and receive responses for efficiency and
scaling.

Memcache to cache data in-memory and speed up database operations.

Fully managed infrastructure. GAE manages the infrastructure so developers can

focus on writing code and developing scalable, high-performance apps.

Support for multiple programming languages. GAE supports all these popular
development languages:

Go.

Java.

Node.js.

Hypertext Preprocessor.

Python.

Ruby.

Application diagnostics. GAE lets users monitor app health and performance, and
quickly diagnose and fix bugs.

Security features. GAE enables users to define access policies with the GAE firewall
and leverage Secure Sockets Layer/Transport Layer Security certificates for free to boost

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What is Google App Engine? | Definition from TechTarget 03/05/24, 4:51 PM

application security.

Traffic splitting. GAE lets users route requests to different versions of the same
application.

Versioning. Developers have the freedom to create and host different versions of an app
in different environments.

Custom runtimes. GAE's flexible environment also supports custom runtimes.

Google App Engine benefits

GAE extends the benefits of cloud computing to application development in multiple ways.

Ease of setup and use. GAE is a fully managed platform, so users can write code
without considering IT operations or worrying about back-end infrastructure. Users can
build different types of applications in different languages using GAE's built-in tools.

Cost-effective pay-per-use pricing. GAE's billing scheme only charges users daily for
the resources they use. Users can monitor their resource usage and bills on a dashboard.

Scalability. Applications automatically scale as workloads fluctuate.

Google App Engine challenges

Depending on an organization's application processing needs, there may be some
challenges when using GAE.

Lack of control. If a problem occurs in the back-end infrastructure, the user is dependent
on Google to fix it.

Confusing user interface. GAE's user interface can be confusing and hard to navigate,
especially for new users.

Inadequate dashboard. GAE's dashboard does not provide a resource summary,

making it hard to determine which resources have been consumed.

Inadequate documentation. A lack of up-to-date GAE documentation may make it

difficult for some users to understand the platform so that they may use it effectively.

What is PaaS (Platform as a Service)?

Example of app built with Google App Engine

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What is Google App Engine? | Definition from TechTarget 03/05/24, 4:51 PM

One example of an application created in GAE is an Android messaging app that stores user
log data. The app can store user messages and write event logs to the Firebase Realtime
Database and use it to automatically synchronize data across devices. Java servers in the
GAE flexible environment connect to Firebase and receive notifications from it. Together,
these components create a back-end streaming service to collect messaging log data.

GAE lets users structure applications as microservices. Learn the difference between
service-oriented architecture and microservices and the benefits of each. Compare Google
Cloud Run vs. Google App Engine for enterprise software and explore the top 10 PaaS
providers and what they offer.

This was last updated in March 2024

··
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What is Google App Engine? | Definition from TechTarget 03/05/24, 4:51 PM

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