Learn by doing: Introducing Google Cloud Jump Start Solutions

With all the new and disparate cloud services out there, it can be tough for developers to stay up-to-date on the latest best practices and capabilities. Ramping up on a new cloud, wading through the initial setup, and stitching different services to form a complete solution can be complex and time-consuming! When you are pulling yourself through dry documentation, or trying to extract information from online posts that are not directly related to your projects, you might be wondering – is there a better way? 

Well, we hear you loud and clear! Our team has been hard at work to significantly lower the barriers to learning and developing applications on Google Cloud following best practices. And today, we’re thrilled to share with you that an initial list of Jump Start Solutions are now live in the Google Cloud web console for you to test out and give us feedback on. 

Introducing Jump Start Solutions 

Jump Start Solutions are pre-built sample applications and infrastructure best-practices that you can deploy within a few clicks in your own Google Cloud account. You’ll get hands-on experience and learn in an interactive environment right in the Google Cloud web console, playing around with open source code and seeing how everything works together, which will help you quickly build confidence and get familiar working with the Google Cloud products. Plus, we provide detailed reference architecture, guide and walkthrough for each solution, so you can accelerate your path towards building your own apps. 

We built these solutions based on the common use cases you’ve asked for: from building a dynamic website, to deploying a log analytics pipeline, to setting up a load-balanced VM cluster. We’re building more Jump Start Solutions that will be loaded into the console over time. Tell us via this form of any particular solutions you want us to create, or any suggestions for making this experience better for you.

Jump Start Solution walk-through

Now, let’s walk you through a Jump Start Solution and show you how it works. There are just three simple steps: 1) Review, 2) Deploy, and 3) Explore. 

Review

Say you want to build a web app. You can do this on Google Cloud with the dynamic web app Jump Start Solution. First you’ll see the cloud web console page for this solution, which details the Google Cloud products incorporated into the solution — in this case, Cloud Run, Cloud SQL, Cloud Build, Cloud Storage, Firebase, and other key Google Cloud products.

From here you can also dig into an architecture diagram of this solution with a description of the associated infrastructure with baked-in best practices. There’s an estimated monthly price for this solution with more details available in the pricing calculator. You can also apply Google Cloud Free Trial credits to the price if you have them.

Deploy

Now, click DEPLOY to get started.

You’ll select or create a project; choose a deployment name and region, and also have the opportunity to review the APIs and services details before finally deploying the solution.

The deployment kicks off in the background, and you’ll receive a notification in a few minutes once the deployment completes. 

Explore

Now comes the fun part – exploring the Jump Start Solution!

From the solution deployments screen, you can view a few different ways to learn about the solution. For the dynamic web app solution, you can check the web app we built for you, view the resources deployed as part of the solution, or read documentation to learn more about the solution and common next steps.

Jump Start Solutions prioritize learning by doing. Each pre-built web app comes with an in-depth documentation guide to help you understand and customize the solution for your needs.

Lastly, when you’re finished exploring the solution, you can easily delete the solution in just a few clicks. It’s that easy!

Jump on in

During this initial release, there are six solutions available for you to deploy from the web console. If you’re new to Google Cloud, we’ll even give you free credits to try them out. Click the link below to try them yourself!

Deploy three-tier web app

Deploy load-balanced managed VMs

Create a log analysis pipeline

Deploy a secure CI/CD pipeline

Deploy a dynamic web application

Set up a data warehouse with BigQuery

Remember, we’ll be adding more solutions to the catalog over the time. To see all the solutions, check here on our website, or go to Google Cloud web console directly. And if you have a particular solution that you would like us to build, or have suggestions in terms of how to make this experience better for you, fill out this form and let us know. 

Happy learning by doing with Jump Start Solutions!