Introduction
Google Cloud Platform (GCP) is a suite of cloud computing services that runs on Google’s own robust infrastructure. Through the cloud platform, Google offers an app engine, storage, server, domain name, as well as other features. All the valuable resources are stored in Google’s data centers which are strategically located across the globe. You can choose your closest server and provide better service to your visitors. It not only allows users to access one of the largest networks in the world but also ensures that users have less downtime using the platform. Google Cloud Platform provides a hosting solution which is commonly known as Google Cloud Hosting. There are more than 8 million live websites using Google Cloud Hosting. It ranks at third place in the cloud hosting service among the top sites on the web. With a hold on 2% of market shares, Google Cloud Platform holds the eighth position among other top providers in the market.
Most data suggests that the platform is more likely to gain popularity in upcoming years. Some of the largest companies in the world have started using Google Cloud Platform including Spotify, Apple, Snapchat, HSBC, Sony music, and Coca-Cola. There are many benefits of choosing Google Cloud Hosting for your enterprise WordPress site. It provides better performance, virtually limitless scalability, reliable security, and greater control and flexibility. In this blog, we are going to walk through the benefits of choosing Google Cloud Platform for your enterprise WordPress website in more detail.
1. Physical and digital security
Security is one of the major concerns for any website, but stakes are a lot higher for enterprise WordPress sites. According to Rachel King, technical writer at ZDNet “major security benefit of using Google Cloud Platform is that it provides the same security that Google uses for its own products. Google’s physical data centers are highly secured and data remains encrypted both in transit and at rest. The data stored on a persistent disk is encrypted under 256-bit AES (Advanced Encryption Standards) and each encryption key is also encrypted with a set of master keys which is regularly changed”.
Google collaborates with some of the biggest ISPs (Internet service providers) in the world which secures data in transit across the public internet. It provides users with a two-factor authentication feature and hardware keys to protect unauthorized access to your cloud. Google Cloud Platform meets certain security features as it complies with many financial, government, and healthcare standards like HIPAA. Security in Google Cloud Platform is remarkable because it comes with the model that has taken shape in the last 15 years. With strong and reliable security features, Google Cloud Platform stands as one of the best choices for enterprise WordPress sites.
2. Performance
In today’s business environment, demand for fast and reliable service is higher than ever. Website users demand fast access to content and functions as well as expecting websites to be available at any time. That’s why it has become more crucial for today’s business owners to have a fast and high-performance model implemented on their website or server. Google Cloud Platform provides higher performance when it comes to enterprise WordPress sites. It is one of the most chosen options that help WordPress websites to provide higher quality performance to the users. Google Cloud Platform has Virtual Machines (VMs) that can be used as a hosting service along with:
- LEMP stack (LINUX, Nginx, MySQL, and PHP)
- Google Cloud Platform storage services for static content on a WordPress site.
- Auto-scaling and load balancing service for managing and controlling traffic.
- Configuring a virtual private cloud to protect data and auto-scaling processes.
In scenarios where a server or virtual machine crashes, you just need to restore the most recent backup from Google Cloud Platform to get the WordPress website functioning again. This feature is called automated backup for servers and WordPress sites.
With Google Cloud Platform you can increase the capability of your WordPress site to attend to a large number of users simultaneously. It is highly recommended to choose the Google Cloud Platform to achieve the level of performance needed to satisfy users. It is one of the most reliable tools to get your WordPress site to work on a higher-performance model.
3. Live migration to virtual machines (VMs)
Google Cloud Platform provides a feature called live migration of virtual machines, it is one of the huge benefits of using Google Cloud Platform. It offers live migration that keeps your virtual machine instances running even when an event such as a software or hardware update occurs. The platform live migrates your running virtual machines to another host in the same zone without rebooting your virtual machines. This feature is helpful for users as it allows Google to perform maintenance without interrupting any of the virtual machines. This is a crucial feature for keeping the platform safe and reliable. There is no noticeable downtime for users during maintenance events because the critical applications are always functioning. This feature is not provided by other platforms like AWS, Azure, and Digital Ocean. This is one of the most important differentiators of the Google Cloud Platform compared with other service providers.
4. Best Pricing
Startups and enterprises are always looking for reliable service with low cost. According to Piyush jain, Founder of Simpalm, App and Web development company for Startups “ Cutting costs is one of the major concerns in every company, no matter the size. Google Cloud Platform helps startups and enterprises alike to cut costs and utilize resources. Google Cloud Platform offers the best competitive prices on the market. It bills in minute-level increments with a 10 minute minimum charge. You pay only for the time you use and Google provides discounted prices for long-running workloads with no commitments”.
For example, if you use virtual machines for a month, you may get a discount on the bill. This pricing makes it well suited for businesses of any size to reduce costs. Other companies require pre-paying for services. AWS has reserved instances to be eligible for a discount and Azure offers a 5% discount on 12 months prepay. According to an analysis, virtual machine instances are cheaper using Google Cloud Platform than other similar providers such as AWS and Azure. Also, the compute engine is 40%-50% cheaper than other similar providers like AWS and Azure. One of the best reasons for choosing Google Cloud Platform for your enterprise website is lower cost and reliable service.
Also Read: How much does it cost to create a small business website?
5. Other Google services to extend your WordPress site
Apart from blog-standard website hosting with Google Cloud Platform, you can also utilize the range of other services offered by Google, depending on your needs. This range includes services like affordable object storage via Google Cloud Storage, Google AI services like vision detection and text to speech, and the use of real-time map data. There are more than 100 products and services from Google that are available. Adding these innovative services can improve the impact of your WordPress site.
6. BigData
There are many platforms available that are known for specific services. For example, AWS (Amazon Web Services) is known for its computing power and infrastructure, Azure for its OS, and Google for its data analytics. With these analytics, you can find valuable insights that can help you strategize growth. Google’s innovative tools in cloud warehousing, like Google BigQuery, can help you to process a large amount of data quickly and with ease. Real-time data processing services such as Google Cloud Dataflow and Google Cloud Dataproc can provide you with useful insights. Data platform architecture that was designed 20 years ago still remains helpful in solving business problems of 2021 and will continue to solve these problems into the future. Big data features are one of the major benefits of the Google platform because it provides valuable insights by processing a huge amount of data with accuracy and efficiency.
7. Smart backups
Google Cloud Storage is one of the most reliable, secure, and durable storage services. It offers four different types of storage including Coldline Storage, Nearline, Regional Storage, and Multiregional Storage. It keeps the integrity of data by storing it redundantly with automatic checksums. The key advantage is that it is geo-redundant and stores your data in at least two regions within the multi-regional location of the bucket. Having the data stored this way means your data is secured and can not be lost even due to natural calamity.
Conclusion
Google Cloud has a bigger impact, especially in the world of web and mobile app development, where small and large enterprises can both have access to Google technologies. Google Cloud Platform is not only cheaper but also brings the benefits of the largest networks in the world when it comes to Cloud Hosting and utilizing Google Cloud Platform. There are many other benefits associated with Google Cloud Platform, live migration of virtual machines is one of the key differentiators of Google Cloud Platform from the other similar providers. Relying on the Google Cloud Platform for WordPress site can be beneficial for startups and enterprises for a long period of time.
