The capstone. After eleven chapters of bricks, this one is about building. Six topics on how to choose, compose, and operate the services from chapters 1 through 11 into real production systems.
6 topics
The previous chapters covered fifty-one services individually. This chapter is about the work that happens between them — picking the right one for a problem, composing several into a working system, and operating that system to a production standard. Each topic here builds on the same bricks, applied with judgment that takes years to acquire and is the most consequential thing a senior engineer brings to a GCP project.
The topics are ordered to build on each other. Topic 52 is the most immediate practical skill — given a problem, which service do you reach for? Topic 53 takes that further: how do those services compose into distributed architectures? Topics 54 through 56 are the non-functional concerns every production system must answer — reliability, security, cost. Topic 57 synthesizes everything through real case studies that contrast bad and good designs.
The Topics Build on Each Other
57 · Architecture Case Studies
Synthesis — bad vs good designs across real systems.
56 · Cost Optimization
Make the design affordable to run.
55 · Security Architecture
Bake protection into the design.
54 · SRE Principles
Measure and operate it to a standard.
53 · Cloud Design Patterns
Compose services into distributed architectures.
52 · Decision Frameworks
Foundation — given a problem, which service do you reach for?
57 · Architecture Case Studies
56 · Cost Optimization
55 · Security Architecture
54 · SRE Principles
53 · Cloud Design Patterns
52 · Decision Frameworks