Much to the delight of every server admin on Google Cloud, Google has today announced the availability of Google Cloud Console, a mobile app for monitoring and managing infrastructure running on the Google Cloud Platform on both iOS and Android.
The search engine giant had launched an Android-specific beta version early this year in March-end. At the time, it had said the iOS version would be out ‘soon.’
Coming to the app’s functionality, Cloud Console app gives developers the ability to manage a project running on the Google Cloud Platform directly from an Android phone or tablet. They can check the state of their Google App Engine or Compute Engine resources, create a custom dashboard to get an overview of a project, and take quick actions directly from a mobile device such as stopping a virtual machine.
It also allows users to customise the app’s dashboard to fit various needs such as billing, metrics, performance information, and monitoring of various accounts where the Google App Engine and Compute Engine resources can be viewed. The Android app specifically has an additional utility bundled in- it even allows you to SSH into a virtual machine or reset it.
Launch of these mobile apps would come as a big relief for admins, who for long have been demanding on-the-go functionality on Google Cloud Platform. The possibilities became even more attractive, especially after Google’s StackDriver acquisition in 2014. It’s a significant development in the process of the maturing of Google’s cloud infrastructure as against rivals Microsoft Azure and Amazon AWS, which already has iOS and Android apps.
However, I must add that Google’s Cloud platform hasn’t been stable as of late. Back in early 2015, the Google Compute engine was affected for a staggering 45 minutes blockade, thanks to a patch update that was not tested to function in the actual app environment at all.
So, before you go out all in to these new apps, a general cation would be to not stay much dependent on the same, considering how sensitive and important data on your cloud server might be. As for Windows Phone owners who unfortunately are cloud server admins too, you have been left in the lurch, as of now.
