2022-08-01

Cloud Run Overview

What is Google Cloud Run

Google Cloud Run is a fully managed serverless platform designed to simplify the process of building, deploying, and scaling containerized applications. By automatically managing infrastructure, scaling, and routing, Cloud Run enables developers to focus on writing code and delivering features, without worrying about the complexities of traditional infrastructure management.

At the heart of Cloud Run is the use of containers, lightweight and portable environments that allow applications to run in a self-contained manner. Cloud Run leverages Docker, a popular containerization technology, to define applications' dependencies and environment consistently. This standardization streamlines deployment and ensures consistent behavior across various environments.

Key Features of Google Cloud Run

Fully managed: Cloud Run manages infrastructure, networking, and scaling, allowing developers to concentrate on code and features instead of infrastructure management.

Auto-scaling
Cloud Run scales the number of instances based on incoming traffic, ensuring optimal responsiveness during peak times and conserving resources when idle.
Pay-per-use
With Cloud Run, you only pay for the resources used during request processing, eliminating the need to provision and pay for pre-allocated resources.
Portable and open
Cloud Run supports the open-source Knative API, allowing easy portability to other platforms compatible with Knative, such as Kubernetes.
Integration with Google Cloud Services
Cloud Run seamlessly integrates with other Google Cloud services like Cloud Storage, Firestore, and Pub/Sub, enabling the creation of end-to-end serverless solutions.

Supported Languages and Runtimes

Google Cloud Run supports a wide range of programming languages and runtimes. As long as your application can run in a container and listen for HTTP requests, it can run on Cloud Run.

Google Cloud Run Workflow

The typical workflow for deploying an application to Google Cloud Run includes the following steps:

Develop your application
Write your application code using any supported language or runtime.
Containerize your application
Package your application and its dependencies into a Docker container. You'll create a Dockerfile that specifies the base image, runtime environment, and necessary dependencies.
Push your container image
Push the container image to a container registry like Google Container Registry (GCR) or Docker Hub. Cloud Run will use this image to deploy your application.
Deploy your application to Cloud Run
Use the Google Cloud Console, Cloud SDK, or API to deploy your application to Cloud Run. Specify the container image, environment variables, memory limits, and other configuration options as needed.
Monitor and manage your application
Once deployed, use the Google Cloud Console, Cloud SDK, or API to manage, monitor, and scale your application.

Google Cloud Run Pricing

Google Cloud Run offers a cost-effective, pay-as-you-go pricing model that allows you to pay only for the resources consumed while your application processes requests. This eliminates the need to provision and pay for pre-allocated resources. The pricing for Google Cloud Run consists of the following components:

Compute
You are charged for the vCPU and memory usage while your application processes requests.
Requests
You are billed for the number of requests served by your application.
Networking
You pay for the egress (outbound) traffic from your application to the internet or other Google Cloud services.

Compute Pricing

Compute pricing is determined by the amount of vCPU and memory used by your application while it processes requests. Cloud Run measures usage in increments of 100 milliseconds, and the cost is calculated based on the following formula:

Cost = (vCPU_Usage * vCPU_Price) + (Memory_Usage * Memory_Price)

The vCPU and memory usage are determined by the number of instances and their allocated resources. You can configure the vCPU and memory allocation for each instance in the deployment settings, with the default being 1 vCPU and 256 MiB of memory.

Requests Pricing

In addition to compute pricing, you are also billed for the number of requests served by your application. The cost per request is relatively small, but it can add up as your application serves a large number of requests.

Networking Pricing

Networking costs are based on the amount of egress (outbound) traffic from your application to the internet or other Google Cloud services. Ingress (inbound) traffic is free of charge. It's important to note that the cost of egress traffic may vary depending on the destination, with traffic to some Google Cloud services being free or discounted.

Free Tier

Google Cloud Run offers a generous free tier, which includes:

2 million requests per month
180,000 vCPU-seconds per month
360,000 GiB-seconds of memory per month
1 GB of egress traffic per month

These free tier allowances are shared across all Cloud Run services in your Google Cloud project.

Comparison to GKE

Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE) is a managed Kubernetes service that enables you to deploy, manage, and scale containerized applications using the popular Kubernetes orchestration platform. Here is the comparison: