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-[Static mirrors of GOV.UK](/manual/fall-back-to-mirror.html) are hosted in storage buckets within AWS and Google Cloud Platform (GCP). You may need login to GCP to [remove an asset](/manual/howto-manually-remove-assets.html) or to [emergency publish content using the static mirrors](/manual/fall-back-to-mirror.html#emergency-publishing-using-the-static-mirror).
+GOV.UK uses Google Cloud Platform (GCP) for three main things:
 
-## Request GCP access
+- [Static mirrors of GOV.UK](/manual/fall-back-to-mirror.html) (these are hosted in AWS and GCP).
+- [DNS](/manual/dns.html) (DNS for www.gov.uk, service.gov.uk and other domains we manage is mirrored to name servers in AWS Route53 and Google CloudDNS)
+- Various data science tasks such as [BigQuery](/manual/view-extract-feedback-data-bigquery.html)
 
-Permission to Google Cloud Platform (GCP) is managed through the [GOV.UK GCP
-access Google Group](https://groups.google.com/a/digital.cabinet-office.gov.uk/g/govuk-gcp-access).
+## GCP access
 
-Access to GCP is granted when [permanent Production access](/manual/rules-for-getting-production-access.html) is
+Access to GCP is managed through the [GOV.UK GCP access Google Group](https://groups.google.com/a/digital.cabinet-office.gov.uk/g/govuk-gcp-access).
+
+Access to this group is granted manually once [permanent Production access](/manual/rules-for-getting-production-access.html) is
 approved and merged to [GOV.UK user reviewer](https://github.com/alphagov/govuk-user-reviewer) repository.
 
-If you should have access but don't, the 2nd line team should be able to add
-you to the Google Group.
+If you should have access but don't, the 2nd line team should be able to add you to the Google Group.
+
+### Accessing the console
 
 You can login to the GCP console at [https://console.cloud.google.com/](https://console.cloud.google.com/) using
 your `@digital.cabinet-office.gov.uk` email address.
+
+There are four main GCP projects in GOV.UK:
+
+- [GOVUK Production](https://console.cloud.google.com/home/dashboard?project=govuk-production)
+- [GOVUK Integration](https://console.cloud.google.com/home/dashboard?project=govuk-integration)
+- [GOVUK Staging](https://console.cloud.google.com/home/dashboard?project=govuk-staging-160211)
+- [GOVUK Test](https://console.cloud.google.com/home/dashboard?project=govuk-test)
+
+The interesting services are:
+
+- [Google Cloud Storage](https://console.cloud.google.com/storage/browser?project=govuk-production) - where the static mirrors are stored
+- [Google Cloud DNS](https://console.cloud.google.com/net-services/dns/zones?project=govuk-production) - where the DNS is configured
+
+### Using the CLI
+
+As with AWS, you can access GCP using the command line. The standard GCP command line interface is `gcloud`.
+
+You can install `gcloud` with `brew cask install google-cloud-sdk` or by following the instructions at [google's installation instructions][].
+
+NOTE: By default `gcloud` doesn't put itself on your PATH, so there's an extra manual step to add it.
+Make sure you follow all of the instructions from [homebrew's google-cloud-sdk cask](https://formulae.brew.sh/cask/google-cloud-sdk)
+or [google's installation instructions][].
+
+Once you've installed `gcloud` you can check it's working using some of these commands:
+
+- `gcloud help` - get help
+- `gcloud auth login` - sign in
+- `gcloud config set project govuk-production` - select the GOVUK Production project
+- `gcloud dns managed-zones list` - list the managed DNS zones
+- `gcloud dns record-sets list --zone alpha-gov-uk` - list the DNS record sets for the alpha.gov.uk. zone
+
+If you need to interact with the Cloud Storage (e.g. for the mirrors) from the CLI, you need to install the separate `gsutil` CLI.
+
+## Support tasks which involve GCP
+
+You may need login to GCP to [remove an asset](/manual/howto-manually-remove-assets.html) or
+to [emergency publish content using the static mirrors](/manual/fall-back-to-mirror.html#emergency-publishing-using-the-static-mirror).
+
+You will also need GCP access to update DNS if you need to [Fall back to the secondary CDN (AWS CloudFront)](/manual/fall-back-to-aws-cloudfront.html.md).
+
+[google's installation instructions]: https://cloud.google.com/sdk/docs/quickstart#mac
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