New Google Cloud Launcher Gives Devs Rapid Deployment, Configuration

Google announced it’s new Cloud Launcher tool in a blog post this morning. Cloud Launcher allows developers using Google Cloud Platform to streamline the timely process of configuring underlying runtime components and packages for virtual machines (VMs); by using Cloud Launcher, developers can focus on coding, not deploying libraries or configuring tooling.

Cloud Launcher allows users to launch over 120 open source packages which have been pre-configured by either Bitnami or Google Click to Deploy.

Bitnami Inc. has partnered with Google to “simplify the deployment and configuration of servers and applications,” says Bitnami COO Erica Brescia. “Compute Engine gives Bitnami users another great way to deploy their favorite app in just a few clicks.”

To deploy packages, users select a package from the Cloud Launcher library and specify a few key parameters. Cloud Launcher supports search for desired package, as well as filtering by package types, such as database CRM or CMS.

In their blog post, Google stressed that they are “actively working” to ensure that all packages are integrated with Google Cloud Monitoring by late spring, so that users can view performance metrics, and create custom dashboards and alerts.

Cloud Launcher includes developer tools and stacks such as Apache Solr, Django, Gitlab, Jenkins, Lamp, Node.js, Ruby on Rails and Tomcat. Database packages available include Drupal, WordPress, JasperREports, SugarCRM and Joomla.

Google’s Cloud Launcher could be a play to attract enterprises that have code-focused developer teams to the Google Cloud Platform.  A Forrester Wave Report released in December of last year placed Google Cloud Platform in the “strong performs” category for enterprise public cloud platforms for coders, but Googles strongest competition, Microsoft Azure and Amazon AWS both surpassed Google and placed in the “leaders” category. The Forrester report stressed that coders prefer writing code, not managing infrastructure configuration, and Cloud Launcher should allow them to do just that.