Cloud Functions: Qwik Start - Command Line
GSP080 Google Cloud Self-Paced Labs
Overview Cloud Functions is a serverless execution environment for building and connecting cloud services. With Cloud Functions you write simple, single-purpose functions that are attached to events emitted from your cloud infrastructure and services. Your Cloud Function is triggered when an event being watched is fired. Your code executes in a fully managed environment. There is no need to provision any infrastructure or worry about managing any servers.
Cloud Functions can be written in Node.js, Python, and Go, and are executed in language-specific runtimes as well. You can take your Cloud Function and run it in any standard Node.js runtime which makes both portability and local testing a breeze.
Connect and Extend Cloud Services Cloud Functions provides a connective layer of logic that lets you write code to connect and extend cloud services. Listen and respond to a file upload to Cloud Storage, a log change, or an incoming message on a Cloud Pub/Sub topic. Cloud Functions augments existing cloud services and allows you to address an increasing number of use cases with arbitrary programming logic. Cloud Functions have access to the Google Service Account credential and are thus seamlessly authenticated with the majority of Google Cloud services such as Datastore, Cloud Spanner, Cloud Translation API, Cloud Vision API, as well as many others. In addition, Cloud Functions are supported by numerous Node.js client libraries, which further simplify these integrations.
Events and Triggers Cloud events are things that happen in your cloud environment.These might be things like changes to data in a database, files added to a storage system, or a new virtual machine instance being created.
Events occur whether or not you choose to respond to them. You create a response to an event with a trigger. A trigger is a declaration that you are interested in a certain event or set of events. Binding a function to a trigger allows you to capture and act on events. For more information on creating triggers and associating them with your functions, see Events and Triggers.
Serverless Cloud Functions removes the work of managing servers, configuring software, updating frameworks, and patching operating systems. The software and infrastructure are fully managed by Google so that you just add code. Furthermore, provisioning of resources happens automatically in response to events. This means that a function can scale from a few invocations a day to many millions of invocations without any work from you.
Use Cases Asynchronous workloads, for example lightweight ETL or cloud automations, like triggering application builds, no longer need their own server and a developer to wire it up. You simply deploy a Cloud Function bound to the event you want and you're done.
The fine-grained, on-demand nature of Cloud Functions also makes it a perfect candidate for lightweight APIs and webhooks. Because there is automatic provisioning of HTTP endpoints when you deploy an HTTP Function, there is no complicated configuration required as there is with some other services. See the following table for additional common Cloud Functions use cases:
Use Case
Description
Data Processing / ETL
Listen and respond to Cloud Storage events such as when a file is created, changed, or removed. Process images, perform video transcoding, validate and transform data, and invoke any service on the Internet from your Cloud Function.
Webhooks
Via a simple HTTP trigger, respond to events originating from 3rd party systems like GitHub, Slack, Stripe, or from anywhere that can send HTTP requests.
Lightweight APIs
Compose applications from lightweight, loosely coupled bits of logic that are quick to build and that scale instantly. Your functions can be event-driven or invoked directly over HTTP/S.
Mobile Backend
Use Google's mobile platform for app developers, Firebase, and write your mobile backend in Cloud Functions. Listen and respond to events from Firebase Analytics, Realtime Database, Authentication, and Storage.
IoT
Imagine tens or hundreds of thousands of devices streaming data into Cloud Pub/Sub, thereby launching Cloud Functions to process, transform and store data. Cloud Functions lets you do in a way that's completely serverless.
This hands-on lab shows you how to to create, deploy, and test a cloud function using the Google Cloud Shell command line.
What you'll do Create a simple cloud function Deploy and test the function View logs Setup Before you click the Start Lab button Read these instructions. Labs are timed and you cannot pause them. The timer, which starts when you click Start Lab, shows how long Google Cloud resources will be made available to you.
This hands-on lab lets you do the lab activities yourself in a real cloud environment, not in a simulation or demo environment. It does so by giving you new, temporary credentials that you use to sign in and access Google Cloud for the duration of the lab.
What you need To complete this lab, you need:
Access to a standard internet browser (Chrome browser recommended). Time to complete the lab. Note: If you already have your own personal Google Cloud account or project, do not use it for this lab.
Note: If you are using a Chrome OS device, open an Incognito window to run this lab.
How to start your lab and sign in to the Google Cloud Console Click the Start Lab button. If you need to pay for the lab, a pop-up opens for you to select your payment method. On the left is a panel populated with the temporary credentials that you must use for this lab.
Open Google Console
Copy the username, and then click Open Google Console. The lab spins up resources, and then opens another tab that shows the Sign in page.
Sign in
Tip: Open the tabs in separate windows, side-by-side.
If you see the Choose an account page, click Use Another Account. Choose an account In the Sign in page, paste the username that you copied from the left panel. Then copy and paste the password.
Important: You must use the credentials from the left panel. Do not use your Google Cloud Training credentials. If you have your own Google Cloud account, do not use it for this lab (avoids incurring charges).
Click through the subsequent pages:
Accept the terms and conditions. Do not add recovery options or two-factor authentication (because this is a temporary account). Do not sign up for free trials. After a few moments, the Cloud Console opens in this tab.
Note: You can view the menu with a list of Google Cloud Products and Services by clicking the Navigation menu at the top-left. Cloud Console Menu Activate Cloud Shell Cloud Shell is a virtual machine that is loaded with development tools. It offers a persistent 5GB home directory and runs on the Google Cloud. Cloud Shell provides command-line access to your Google Cloud resources.
In the Cloud Console, in the top right toolbar, click the Activate Cloud Shell button.
Cloud Shell icon
Click Continue.
cloudshell_continue.png
It takes a few moments to provision and connect to the environment. When you are connected, you are already authenticated, and the project is set to your PROJECT_ID. For example: