Tag Archives: google cloud

Create time-saving apps using AppSheet, no coding required

We recently announced Google Workspace, an integrated platform that brings Google’s communication and collaboration tools together. Your documents, tasks, messages, meetings and emails are now all available in one place. In addition, you’ll see another new option in your Google Workspace interface—AppSheet. AppSheet is Google Cloud’s no-code development platform, designed to let anyone create a powerful app without having to write a single line of code. Instead of learning code or finding someone to create the app you need, you can use AppSheet to create the app, so you can focus on using it instead of developing or fixing it.

You can create your own application using AppSheet directly from Google Sheets. Open up a Sheet, and you’ll see an option under “Tools” to “Open in AppSheet.” Once you create an AppSheet account (if you didn’t have one already), AppSheet will take care of the coding part, analyzing the data structure and creating a prototype app from it. 

Here’s what you’ll see:

See how you can build a new app about national parks from within Google Sheets.

See how you can build a new app about national parks from within Google Sheets.

Exploring data with no-code applications

This easy connection between Sheets and AppSheet means it’s easier than ever to build the apps you need. It could be a curbside pickup app to manage customer orders, a safety app linked to Google Docs, a work order app integrated with Google Meet or a ticketing app to manage work orders. There are plenty of possibilities to explore, especially since AppSheet integrates with other handy tools like Google Calendar, Maps and more. 

To learn more, check out AppSheet in Google Workspace, and to explore more of the amazing apps built by the AppSheet community, check out this article on the momentum of no-code programming.

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Cloud Covered: What was new with Google Cloud in September

September is typically a month of transition, with students going back to school and most American sports leagues starting their seasons or getting ready for playoffs. But that wasn’t always the case this year. The unique circumstances of 2020 have made these transitions and many others more complicated, creating new challenges for all businesses. We’ve heard recently from everyone from construction companies to Major League Baseball on how they’re meeting new evolving customer needs.

A new “Gateway” to help developers with APIs

To keep pace with rapidly changing environments, developers package workloads as easy-to-use application programming interfaces (APIs). APIs are connectors that let multiple pieces of software work together, no matter what systems and programs your teams use, making it easier to collaborate with other teams or publicly over the web. To help developers focus on building code without having to worry about the underlying infrastructure, we released API Gateway—a fully-managed solution to create, secure and monitor APIs for your serverless workloads.

Make meetings more productive—and more human—with Google Meet Series One hardware

Lockdowns have taught us all the importance of strong video conferencing for connecting and collaboration, and that will continue to be true when we all start moving back into the office. That’s why we partnered with Lenovo to introduce the Series One meeting room kits for Google Meet. The kits include the background noise-cancelling Smart Audio Bar, Google AI-powered video cameras for stronger video quality, powerful computing solutions with built-in Intel i7 processors and much more.

Helping more businesses protect their data

Google Cloud encrypts data at-rest and in-transit, but customer data must be decrypted for processing. Confidential Computing is a breakthrough technology which encrypts data in-use—while it is being processed. Confidential Computing environments keep data encrypted in memory and elsewhere outside the central processing unit (CPU). To protect your data even when it’s being processed, we introduced our take on Confidential Computing in July, starting with the beta of our Confidential VMs—virtual machines that encrypt your data in use while it's being processed—without any code changes to the application. Now we’ve announced that Confidential VMs will soon be generally available to all Google Cloud customers, and we’ve introduced the preview version of our new Confidential GKE Nodes, which can help you achieve encryption in-use for data processed inside your GKE cluster, without the performance degrading.

From the ballpark to the cloud: How MLB is using Anthos

For Major League Baseball (MLB), processing, analyzing and ultimately making decisions based on everything from batting averages to hot-dog sales are key to running a successful organization. With Google Cloud’s help, MLB was able to run workloads in the cloud (even in areas with low bandwidth) with data centers at each of their 30 teams’ ballparks across the U.S. and Canada. And with Anthos, they can collect those workloads and their code into a container so they can run them in whatever location they need to.

That’s a wrap for September. Keep up on all things Google Cloud on our blog.

New safety and collaboration features in Google Meet

With the new school year underway, teachers are learning how to best manage their classes and continue to stay connected with their students. Here are new Meet features to help.

Digital whiteboard with Jamboard

Now you can use Jamboard to make your Meet lessons more interactive—start by preparing your digital whiteboard in advance of your lesson. When it’s time to start a class session, whiteboards are view-only to the class by default but can be made collaborative so all students can edit and build on one another’s ideas. Both teachers and students can present a whiteboard, but the teacher can restrict this using the “who is allowed to present” setting. If presentations are restricted, then students will still be able to view and collaborate on the teacher’s whiteboard.

Meet + Jamboard.png

Jamboard integration helps students collaborate and build on one another’s ideas. 

Breakout rooms

Breakout rooms allow educators to split students into simultaneous small group discussions. They are now available to G Suite Enterprise for Education customers, as many schools have started distance or hybrid learning, and will be launching to additional Google Workspace editions later this year. Over the next few months, we'll add new features like a timer and an "ask for help" option for participants to get the teacher's attention. With breakout rooms, teachers will be able to mirror their in-classroom teaching methods in Meet.

Breakoutrooms.gif

Allow increased engagement with breakout rooms and split students up for simultaneous group work. 

Attendance reports

Taking attendance can be time consuming, especially with remote classes. Teachers can save time with attendance reports, now rolling out over the next few weeks to G Suite Enterprise for Education customers.The report includes each participant’s name, email and the length of time the participant was on call, including initial join and exit time. Meeting organizers can securely receive these reports after meetings with more than five participants. Later this year we’re adding admin controls to enable or disable attendance reports for the domain and host controls to give teachers the choice to turn this feature on/off for each meeting.

Attendance Google Sheet [future use].png

Attendance tracking reports will automatically be sent to meeting organizers, sharing participant names, emails and length of time in meeting.

Q&A

The new Q&A feature, which G Suite Enterprise for Education customers will see in the coming days, allows students to ask questions without disrupting the flow of the lesson or discussion. Students can post their questions to a queue and other students can upvote questions so the teacher knows which to answer first. For better control, teachers can hide any questions and can enable or disable question submission at any time.

Q&A.png

Q&A helps students share and prioritize questions without interrupting lessons. 


Polling

And lastly, polling, now rolling out for G Suite Enterprise for Education customers. Polling allows teachers to periodically check in to make sure students understand the classwork and aren't falling behind. Instant feedback also allows teachers to adjust curriculum when students require extra development on certain subjects. Polls can also make classes fun with icebreakers to revive class engagement, start discussions or debate a topic. Checkout some tips on how to use Q&A and Polls here. 

Poll.gif

Polling allows teachers to get instant feedback from students

ICYMI: Recent launches to Meet for educators 

We recently made it easier for moderators to manage who can join their meetings with a simple toggle called Quick access. Educators also have new meeting controls to manage who can share their screen and who can send chat messages within the meeting to make the distance learning environment as safe as possible.

1342-GDU-Meet seetings-01.png

Education moderators can now easily control who can join, chat, or present during a meeting.

You can now blur your background in meetings (coming soon to Chrome OS), which offers class participants more privacy and limits potential distractions like an unmade bed or a friendly pet. And since many classes can’t be all together in person right now, we’ve made it easier to feel like you’re together with a larger tile view of up to 49 participants at once. 

If you have additional requests, please share your feedback within Meet as this helps us prioritize and accelerate the feature roadmap to best support educational needs. We’re here to empower teachers and schools to accomplish what they do best. Stay tuned to the G Suite Updates blog for all the latest updates coming to Meet.

Stay connected with Google Meet

For many of us, it’s difficult to see each other in person these days. Video is now playing a crucial role in helping us connect—whether it’s across time zones or just across the street. For me, it’s provided a space to collaborate with my team, and a way for friends and family from around the world to see my newborn daughter Sophia smile for the first time. It doesn’t matter what kind of meeting you are having: We believe that people should be able to use the best possible services to connect, anytime and anywhere. 

That’s why we made Google Meet, our premium video conferencing product, free for everyone back in April. 

When we re-engineered the service we built for secure business meetings and made it available to all, we also made calls unlimited (well, the limit is really 24 hours, but I’ve yet to hit the limit) through September 30, so that people could enjoy the same benefits as our business users with their existing Google Account. From book clubs, band practices and dance parties–millions of you have turned to Meet to connect safely over video.  

As we look ahead to a holiday season with less travel and important milestones like family reunions, PTA meetings and weddings hosted over video, we want to continue helping those who rely on Meet to stay in touch over the coming months. As a sign of our commitment, today we’re continuing unlimited Meet calls (up to 24 hours) in the free version through March 31, 2021 for Gmail accounts. 

We’ve also added a ton of experiences to Meet to make connecting more fun and more productive, too. You can now see your family on the big screen when you cast your calls to your TV, or join hands-free on your Nest Hub Max. Jump on the call without worrying about the holiday wrapping paper mess behind you with background blur, or take trivia night to the next level by seeing  49 of your competitors (and yourself) at the same time. You can even keep score using our collaborative digital whiteboard.

Trivia night on Meet

Bring the digital whiteboarding experience to your next call.

We hope these updates will help you do more at home, at work and everywhere you choose. If you haven’t tried Meet yet, you can access it right from Gmail, get the app or head to meet.google.com from your browser to start a call. 

Announcing DevFest 2020

Posted by Jennifer Kohl, Program Manager, Developer Community Programs

DevFest Image

On October 16-18, thousands of developers from all over the world are coming together for DevFest 2020, the largest virtual weekend of community-led learning on Google technologies.

As people around the world continue to adapt to spending more time at home, developers yearn for community now more than ever. In years past, DevFest was a series of in-person events over a season. For 2020, the community is coming together in a whole new way – virtually – over one weekend to keep developers connected when they may want it the most.

The speakers

The magic of DevFest comes from the people who organize and speak at the events - developers with various backgrounds and skill levels, all with their own unique perspectives. In different parts of the world, you can find a DevFest session in many local languages. DevFest speakers are made up of various types of technologists, including kid developers , self-taught programmers from rural areas , and CEOs and CTOs of startups. DevFest also features a wide range of speakers from Google, Women Techmakers, Google Developer Experts, and more. Together, these friendly faces, with many different perspectives, create a unique and rich developer conference.

The sessions and their mission

Hosted by Google Developer Groups, this year’s sessions include technical talks and workshops from the community, and a keynote from Google Developers. Through these events, developers will learn how Google technologies help them develop, learn, and build together.

Sessions will cover multiple technologies, such as Android, Google Cloud Platform, Machine Learning with TensorFlow, Web.dev, Firebase, Google Assistant, and Flutter.


At our core, Google Developers believes community-led developer events like these are an integral part of the advancement of technology in the world.

For this reason, Google Developers supports the community-led efforts of Google Developer Groups and their annual tentpole event, DevFest. Google provides esteemed speakers from the company and custom technical content produced by developers at Google. The impact of DevFest is really driven by the grassroots, passionate GDG community organizers who volunteer their time. Google Developers is proud to support them.

The attendees

During DevFest 2019, 138,000+ developers participated across 500+ DevFests in 100 countries. While 2020 is a very different year for events around the world, GDG chapters are galvanizing their communities to come together virtually for this global moment. The excitement for DevFest continues as more people seek new opportunities to meet and collaborate with like-minded, community-oriented developers in our local towns and regions.

Join the conversation on social media with #DevFest.

Sign up for DevFest at goo.gle/devfest.




Still curious? Check out these popular talks from DevFest 2019 events around the world...

Data analyst challenge prepares students for careers in cloud

This summer, more than 200 U.S. university students enrolled in Google Cloud’s career readiness data analyst challenge, an initiative from the Google Cloud Learning Services team for higher education. The program brought undergraduate and graduate students from more than 50 U.S. higher education institutions together (virtually) to learn about cloud fundamentals and connect with Google Cloud leaders, professionals, and partners. 


Students progressed through the Google Cloud career readiness Data Analyst program, a resource available to faculty at higher education institutions around the world to help prepare students for a cloud-first workplace. The career readiness program works with universities to provide students with learning opportunities in an effort to build an early pipeline of cloud-ready talent to meet the hiring needs of Google Cloud customers and partners. 


Over six weeks, students completed more than 40 hours of training and hands-on experience in data analytics, business intelligence, data engineering, and data science. Jazmin Collins, a student at Arcadia University, described the experience as incredibly valuable: “I've never touched the field of data and data science before in my [computer science] experiences, and this challenge gave me insight into the field, hands-on practice with material in the field, and it really sparked a passion for me to look into it on my own.”


In addition to completing course materials, students engaged in live conversations with Google Cloud leaders and professionals like Sudhir Hasbe, director of product management for Google Cloud. They also learned from Google Cloud partners, like Pluto7 and Quantiphi, about career paths and opportunities that rely on Google Cloud skills. 


Data analysis is considered by Global Knowledge to be one of the top five most needed skills worldwide. In the end, more than 180 students in the program received specialization certificates and Google Cloud skill badges that will help them stand out in their professional careers. 


Universities interested in working with Google Cloud to offer career readiness programs to their students can request further information on our site.

Kubernetes engineers keep your favorite software running

In Greek, the word "kubernetes" means "helmsman." In tech, it's a system created by Google that uses containers to help software work more efficiently with the server space it has. Just as someone helms a container ship, Kubernetes makes sure everything gets where it's supposed to be.

Containers are systems that have everything needed to run a piece of software: the code, the dependencies, and on and on. Companies build their products using containers so they’re standardized, whether it runs in the cloud or in a physical data center. Kubernetes manages the workloads and services associated with containers, so software efficiently uses server space. Kubernetes, which Google donated to the Cloud Native Computing Foundation, is now one of the most active open-source projects ever. Google remains the top contributor for the project, including leadership and committee positions. 

Aug. 26 marks the five-year anniversary of Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE), our managed version of open-source Kubernetes, becoming available to everyone. GKE engineers contribute beyond Google Cloud to the Kubernetes community at large. Here, three of those engineers—Michelle Au, Janet Kuo and Purvi Desai—explain why Kubernetes is so important, and how it’s used in the real world. 

Google Kubernetes Engine turns five this year. How would you explain Kubernetes to a five-year-old?

Michelle Au:Kubernetes is a tool that helps many of your favorite games and websites run without problems, even when all your friends want to play at the same time. It makes sure that there are enough computers running to support everyone using them, they are restarted if they crash and that they update without problems.

Janet Kuo:Think of containers as plants. To grow a plant, you need to first find some pots, and then fill the pots with seeds and compost. Let’s say you have all the plants in one pot and there’s not enough compost in that pot. Then you need to move them to other pots. Kubernetes is like a gardener that helps you take care of your plants, check the compost levels of each pot, check the health of your plants, remove dead plants or transplant them when needed. Kubernetes can also grow more or less of certain kinds of plants (“I want at least two roses and at most 10 roses at all times”) based on your preferences. 

Purvi Desai:Imagine a child wants to build a huge city out of Legos. Deciding which Lego blocks needed would take significant time and hard work. Now imagine instead, the child vaguely describes the idea of the city, along with shapes and colors, to their mom. Mom buys Lego kits and builds them for the child. She also works with them every day to add more buildings, so the child can spend more time playing rather than working. Think of Kuberentes as the mom, applications that you use on your computer or tablet as the Legos and the child as the application developer.

And how would you describe your role in GKE to a five-year-old?

Michelle:As a software engineer on the storage team, I write computer programs that make sure your important information is safely stored in Kubernetes.

Janet:I’m the Kubernetes project maintainer. I review code, fix bugs and implement new features. I also build products and tools on top of Kubernetes. You can think of those products as equipment Kubernetes uses to do fancier work. 

Purvi: I’m a senior manager in GKE and Kubernetes development team. My teams build the plumbing or roadways, aka the networking, for Kubernetes. We do the heavy lifting for our customers. 

Why is Kubernetes so important?

Janet:In a world where customers need access to software—regardless of their location—Kubernetes allows applications to run at global scale. Another benefit of Kubernetes is that it runs anywhere, so you can move your applications around. Kubernetes also allows you to customize and manage any resources you want, even the ones that live outside of Kubernetes, using the Kubernetes APIs. 

Michelle:Kubernetes makes it easier for users to adopt good practices for running applications. It provides basic building blocks for scaling workloads, monitoring their health and updating them. This enables teams to develop, roll out and test their applications faster—making those applications more reliable and dynamically scalable. Kubernetes took off because it’s portable across any infrastructure provider and flexible to extend it with custom APIs. 

Purvi: Kubenetes enables you to run cloud native applications anywhere consistently on various platforms. It’s become massively popular not only with developers of modern cloud native microservices applications but also with developers looking to move their traditional applications to a platform that isn’t dependent on the underlying infrastructure. It’s enabled developers and operators alike to run their test and production workloads in environments of their choice without needing to rewire the application. This will continue as more businesses become digital. 

What are some real-life applications of GKE? Tell us a story of a favorite customer use case.

Janet:One of my favorite customer use cases is Shopify. Shopify runs entirely on GKE. They chose GKE and Kubernetes because it allows Shopify to cope with huge spikes in traffic, such as Cyber Monday, Black Friday shopping events or when a celebrity shares a new product on their Shopify store. 

Michelle: I love hearing how GKE enables customers to push the limits of computing. My favorite customer story is this Kubecon keynote by CERN that included a live demo on GKE processing 70TB of data in five minutes to rediscover the Higgs boson. This was impressive not only because of the scientific achievement and processing power demonstrated, but also because they highlighted the portability of Kubernetes and the reproducible environment of containers. 

Purvi: My favorite use cases are when customers have successful massive-hyper growth in a matter of minutes and GKE helps them scale to those demands. We see amazing graphs during launch of new online games, Black Fridays, flash sales, during live events like the Super Bowl, when customers migrate traffic and during customers’ new product launches. It’s so satisfying to see our customers’ business growth and our platform’s role in seamlessly enabling it.

What has your experience been like as a woman in software development? What do you think the future will be like for women in the field?

Janet:A few years ago, I went to a developer meetup with a woman friend of mine who had never been to one before. She was surprised that we were the only two women there, but I didn’t even notice because I was so used to being outnumbered. Luckily, our industry is becoming increasingly diverse over time. 

Michelle: In college, I was part of a women’s engineering community where I established many long-lasting friendships. On the GKE team, I’ve been able to work with many great women leaders, and the leadership in general has been very supportive and accommodating to make sure everyone feels safe and comfortable on the team. I know that my experience is unfortunately not the norm for a lot of women in the field. I hope that with more women role models and leaders, we can help build inclusive communities and encourage more women to take up a career in software. 

Purvi: When I joined a startup straight out of college, I was the only woman in the engineering and product group. But thanks to my upbringing and deep focus on my work, I never felt out of place in the field. I did, however, feel the pinch later at a different startup job when I had my kid and I was the first mother on the team. The company didn’t have support systems like paid leave or a mother’s room. Overall, things are getting better with more women in the field. I think the future for women in software development is bright.  

What’s your advice for aspiring developers who want to get started?

Michelle:It’s important to spend time learning about computer science concepts rather than deep-diving into specific technologies. The latest frameworks and programming languages will come and go, so it will be easier to adapt and learn if you have a good conceptual background.

Janet: Be hands on. Build something from what you’ve learned, and don’t worry if it’s “good enough.” Write articles about what you’re building or learning. This helps you grow and deepens your understanding of a new technology. 

Purvi: Find your passion or interest and explore how computer science can help you realize it. You have to lay the groundwork by learning programming languages, algorithms, data structures and such. This might get boring and tough, but these are fundamental skills just like reading or math. Once the groundwork is laid, the ability to turn your passion into reality will be exhilarating. 

Learn more about how to develop using Kubernetes. 


Improve performance and security with Server-Side Tagging

To measure the effectiveness of digital campaigns and understand the customer journey, businesses often work with a variety of technology partners. Doing so typically requires businesses to add JavaScript code written by these partners, also known as third-party tags, directly to their websites. But when too many tags load on a site, it can negatively affect the customer experience--and conversion rates. Plus, since third-party tags running directly on a site could have broad access to information entered on that page, it’s important for businesses to have control over what information those tags can access.

To help address these challenges, we’re introducing Server-Side Tagging to Google Tag Manager and Tag Manager 360. You’ll now be able to move many third-party tags off your site and into a new server container hosted in your Google Cloud account. That means when customers interact with a page on your site, third-party tags are loaded directly in the server container rather than the site. This provides you with faster page load times, greater security for your customer data, and additional data controls.

Deliver faster site experiences to your customers

When you move third-party tags off your site, fewer tags must load when your customers visit – leading to faster page load times. A recent research study showed that a decrease in page load times for mobile sites improved progression rates for every step of the purchase funnel for all brands surveyed. In fact, for retail sites every 0.1 second reduction in mobile site speed on average increases average order value by nearly 10 percent.

Consider an ecommerce retailer that works with many technology partners to execute marketing campaigns and measure customer behavior. Whenever this retailer wants to work with a new partner, for example to run email marketing campaigns, it needs to add a new third-party tag to its site to measure success. Instead of doing that, the retailer can now place the new tag into its server container in Tag Manager. And when a customer loads the retailer’s site, this tag will run in the server container after the page loads. This allows businesses to measure the success of their campaign without impacting the customer experience.

Secure your customer data

When customers engage with your business online, they share information with you. You want to ensure that information is safe and only authorized partners are able to access it.

When third-party tags are implemented directly on your site, these tags are able to access and interact with other information customers are entering into your site. With Server-Side Tagging, you place third-party tags in a secure server container in your Google Cloud project. This means tags in your server container only have access to information sent to the server and no longer have access to the information entered on your site. And because these tags are placed into your server container, you gain visibility into what data the tags are collecting and where that information is being sent.

Control the behavior of third-party tags

Tag Manager already allows you to control third-party tag behavior through a sandboxed version of JavaScript, ready-to-go tag templates fromthe Community Template Gallery, and a permissions model for all third-party tags. All of these capabilities continue to be available with Server-Side Tagging.

Each tag that you add to your server container will have to declare how it will behave, for example which cookies can be accessed or where data can be sent. And you can also set policies to automatically control what tags are allowed to do. This helps you ensure that any new tags added to your container follow the same permissions so you do not need to continuously check tag behaviors in the future.

Get started with Server-Side Tagging

Server-Side Tagging is now available to all Tag Manager and Tag Manager 360 accounts. When you log into your Tag Manager account, you can create a new server container and connect it with a new or existing Cloud account. You can learn more about setting up Server-Side Tagging for your business with this guide. And if you don’t have a Tag Manager account, you can create one for free.

Automatic Deployment of Hugo Sites on Firebase Hosting and Drafts on Cloud Run

Posted by James Ward, Developer Advocate

Recently I completed the migration of my blog from Wordpress to Hugo and I wanted to take advantage of it now being a static site by hosting it on a Content Delivery Network (CDN). With Hugo the source content is plain files instead of rows in a database. In the case of my blog those files are in git on GitHub. But when the source files change, the site needs to be regenerated and redeployed to the CDN. Also, sometimes it is nice to have drafts available for review. I setup a continuous delivery pipeline which deploys changes to my prod site on Firebase Hosting and drafts on Cloud Run, using Cloud Build. Read on for instructions for how to set all this up.

Step 1a) Setup A New Hugo Project

If you do not have an existing Hugo project you can create a GitHub copy (i.e. fork) of my Hugo starter repo:

Step 1b) Setup Existing Hugo Project

If you have an existing Hugo project you'll need to add some files to it:

.firebaserc

{
  "projects": {
    "production": "hello-hugo"
  }
}

cloudbuild-draft.yaml

steps:
- name: 'gcr.io/cloud-builders/git'
  entrypoint: '/bin/sh'
  args:
  - '-c'
  - |
    # Get the theme git submodule
    THEME_URL=$(git config -f .gitmodules --get-regexp '^submodule\..*\.url$' | awk '{ print $2 }')
    THEME_DIR=$(git config -f .gitmodules --get-regexp '^submodule\..*\.path$' | awk '{ print $2 }')
    rm -rf themes
    git clone $$THEME_URL $$THEME_DIR

- name: 'gcr.io/cloud-builders/docker'
  entrypoint: '/bin/sh'
  args:
  - '-c'
  - |
    docker build -t gcr.io/$PROJECT_ID/$REPO_NAME-$BRANCH_NAME:$COMMIT_SHA -f - . << EOF
    FROM klakegg/hugo:latest
    WORKDIR /workspace
    COPY . /workspace
    ENTRYPOINT hugo -D -p \$$PORT --bind \$$HUGO_BIND --renderToDisk --disableLiveReload --watch=false serve
    EOF
    docker push gcr.io/$PROJECT_ID/$REPO_NAME-$BRANCH_NAME:$COMMIT_SHA

- name: 'gcr.io/cloud-builders/gcloud'
  args:
  - run
  - deploy
  - --image=gcr.io/$PROJECT_ID/$REPO_NAME-$BRANCH_NAME:$COMMIT_SHA
  - --platform=managed
  - --project=$PROJECT_ID
  - --region=us-central1
  - --memory=512Mi
  - --allow-unauthenticated
  - $REPO_NAME-$BRANCH_NAME

cloudbuild.yaml

steps:
- name: 'gcr.io/cloud-builders/git'
  entrypoint: '/bin/sh'
  args:
  - '-c'
  - |
    # Get the theme git submodule
    THEME_URL=$(git config -f .gitmodules --get-regexp '^submodule\..*\.url$' | awk '{ print $2 }')
    THEME_DIR=$(git config -f .gitmodules --get-regexp '^submodule\..*\.path$' | awk '{ print $2 }')
    rm -rf themes
    git clone $$THEME_URL $$THEME_DIR

- name: 'gcr.io/cloud-builders/curl'
  entrypoint: '/bin/sh'
  args:
  - '-c'
  - |
    curl -sL https://github.com/gohugoio/hugo/releases/download/v0.69.2/hugo_0.69.2_Linux-64bit.tar.gz | tar -zxv
    ./hugo

- name: 'gcr.io/cloud-builders/wget'
  entrypoint: '/bin/sh'
  args:
  - '-c'
  - |
    # Get firebase CLI
    wget -O firebase https://firebase.tools/bin/linux/latest
    chmod +x firebase
    # Deploy site
    ./firebase deploy --project=$PROJECT_ID --only=hosting

firebase.json

{
  "hosting": {
    "public": "public"
  }
}


Step 2) Setup Cloud Build Triggers

In the Google Cloud Build console, connect to your newly forked repo: Select the newly forked repo: Create the default push trigger: Edit the new trigger: Set the trigger to only fire on changes to the ^master$ branch: Create a new trigger: Give it a name like drafts-trigger, specify the branch selector as .* (i.e. any branch), and the build configuration file type to "Cloud Build configuration file" with a value of cloudbuild-draft.yaml Setup permissions for the Cloud Build process to manage Cloud Run and Firebase Hosting by visiting the IAM management page, locate the member with the name ending with @cloudbuild.gserviceaccount.com, and select the "pencil" / edit button: Add a role for "Cloud Run Admin" and another for "Firebase Hosting Admin": Your default "prod" trigger isn't read to test yet, but you can test the drafts on Cloud Run by going back to the Cloud Build Triggers page, and clicking the "Run Trigger" button on the "drafts-trigger" line. Check the build logs by finding the build in the Cloud Build History. Once the build completes visit the Cloud Run console to find your newly created service which hosts the drafts version of your new blog. Note that the service name includes the branch so that you can see drafts from different branches.

Step 3) Setup Firebase Hosting

To setup your production / CDN'd site, login to the firebase console and select your project:

Now you'll need your project id, which can be found in the URL on the Firebase Project Overview page. The URL for my project is:

console.firebase.google.com/project/jw-demo/overview

Which means my project id is: jw-demo

Now copy your project id go into your GitHub fork, select the .firebaserc file and click the "pencil" / edit button:

Replace the hello-hugo string with your project id and commit the changes. This commit will trigger two new builds, one for the production site and one for the drafts site on Cloud Run. You can check the status of those builds on the Cloud Build History page. Once the default trigger (the one for Firebase hosting) finishes, check out your Hugo site running on Firebase Hosting by navigating to (replacing YOUR_PROJECT_ID with the project id you used above): https://YOUR_PROJECT_ID.web.app/

Your prod and drafts sites are now automatically deploying on new commits!

Step 4) (Optional) Change Hugo Theme

There are many themes for Hugo and they are easy to change. Typically themes are pulled into Hugo sites using git submodules. To change the theme, edit your .gitmodules file and set the subdirectories and url. As an example, here is the content when using the mainroad theme: 

[submodule "themes/mainroad"]
 path = themes/mainroad
 url = https://github.com/vimux/mainroad.git

You will also need to change the theme value in your config.toml file to match the directory name in the themes directory. For example: 

theme = "mainroad"

Note: At the time of writing this, Cloud Build does not clone git submodules so the cloudbuild.yaml does the cloning instead.

Step 5) (Optional) Setup Local Editing

To setup local editing you will first need to clone your fork. You can do this with the GitHub desktop app. Or from the command line: 

git clone --recurse-submodules https://github.com/USER/REPO.git

Once you have the files locally, install Hugo, and from inside the repo's directory, run: 

hugo -D serve

This will serve the drafts in the site. You can check out the site at: localhost:1313

Committing non-draft changes to master and pushing those changes to GitHub will kick off the build which will deploy them on your prod site. Committing draft to any branch will kick off the build which will deploy them on a Cloud Run site.

Hopefully that all helps you with hosting your Hugo sites! Let me know if you run into any problems.

Get inspired by five Google Cloud Next ‘20: OnAir sessions

Yesterday we kicked off Google Cloud Next ‘20: OnAir, a free, nine-week, in-depth digital event series covering all things cloud computing. While many Next ‘20: OnAir sessions will cover topics near and dear to the hearts of developers, businesses and startups, there are a number of interesting and inspiring sessions that don’t require deep cloud knowledge. Here’s a look at a few of our favorites, ranging from the least to most technical:

1. Google's Diversity Strategy and How It Works
Six years ago Google announced its Diversity Annual Report, and since then we’ve been scaling up and evolving our diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) strategies. In this session, Chief Diversity Officer Melonie Parker discusses how Google is continuing to build a workforce that reflects all communities, sharing more on our efforts to better understand our global workforce and tackle the challenges to advancing DEI in this unique time. Available to watch on demand now. Learn more. 

2. Communication in G Suite: The Future of Gmail, Chat, Meet and More
Over the past year we’ve made a lot of improvements to our communication tools across the web, Android and iOS to address the needs of the modern worker. Join us to hear the latest updates on and vision for these tools in G Suite—we'll show you what's new today, what's coming tomorrow and why we're more excited than ever about the future of these products. Available to watch on demand beginning July 21. Learn more.

3. G Suite Accessibility Features to Empower Inclusion
When we’re talking about connecting digitally, we need to make sure everyone can connect. Emails, calendar invites, video conferences, presentations, documents and spreadsheets are all important tools, and G Suite’s accessibility features are designed so that anyone can use them to get more done. That means they’re inclusive of those who have audio, visual or motor impairment. Check out this session to get an overview of these features and how to use them on mobile or web. Available to watch on demand beginning July 21. Learn more.

4. How Certification Impacted My Career
Becoming Google Cloud-certified has the power to boost careers, and the experience is unique for each person. Solution Engineer Jewel Langevine, who has three certification badges, will discuss her path to certification and how it plays a role in her career. Jewel will also talk about her journey from growing up in Guyana to her present position at Google Cloud. Along the way, she’ll describe how she was introduced to cloud computing, her experiences in mentorship, how she maximized networking opportunities and how she continues to give back to underrepresented communities. Available to watch on demand beginning August 4. Learn more.

5. Data Driven Responses to COVID-19 Using Looker & BigQuery
As governments and businesses plan their near and long term strategic responses to COVID-19, data is central to their decision-making processes. But with that data rapidly growing and evolving, it’s not always easy to understand which tools can help develop actionable and timely insights. This session examines how Google Cloud data analytics technologies like BigQuery and Looker can support organizations as part of their efforts to respond to the pandemic. Available to watch on demand beginning August 11. Learn more.

Google Cloud Next ’20: OnAir is running from now until Sept. 8, with new on-demand content available each week on Tuesdays. Haven’t registered yet? Get started at g.co/cloudnext.