First time co-host Jan Kleinert joins Mark Mirchandani this week to talk about database observability and the cool tools that make it possible. Morgan McLean and Nimesh Bhagat describe database observability, which uses metrics, logs, and other tools to help users understand the health of your database. We talk about Object Relational Mappers and the challenges with using these for debugging database performance. SQL Commenter helps database observability in two ways: it is both a library and a standard, Nimesh tells us. He describes the process for us, detailing exactly how SQL Commenter effects projects. Recently, SQL Commenter was donated to OpenTelemetry to augment the observability offerings, create an application standard, and make it easier for developers to use a variety of different tools and languages. Engineers can get end-to-end traces no matter which database technologies they use. Morgan tells us about Splunk and how information from SQL Commenter is taken into Splunk and used. Backend data like metrics from Cloud Monitoring and client libraries can be correlated together with SQL Commenter and brought into Splunk for full stack observability. Nimesh offers client examples to help us understand how these useful tools integrate for optimal observability. He tells us about the databases and ORMs supported by SQL Commenter. Our guests and co-host Jan give tips to help our listeners get started with SQL Commenter and talk about what they’re looking forward to in the future of observability. Nimesh Bhagat Nimesh is a product manager at Google Cloud, he leads Database Observability. He has worked across engineering and product roles, building highly available and high performance enterprise infrastructure used by Fortune 500 companies. His passion lies in combining powerful infrastructure with simple user experience so that every business and developer can build software at scale and velocity. Morgan McLean Morgan is ​​Director of Product Management at Splunk and co-creator of OpenCensus / OpenTelemetry. Cool things of the week Google Cloud Innovators site Redesigning the Cloud SDK + CLI for easier development blog GCP Podcast Episode 291: Redesigning the Cloud SDK and CLI with Wael Manasra and Cody Oss podcast What is Active Assist? video GCP Podcast Episode 235: Active Assist with Chris Law + MariaDB SkySQL with Robert Hedgepeth podcast Interview SQL Commenter site Sequelize site SQL Alchemy site ADO.net site GCP Podcast Episode 247: Cloud SQL Insights with Nimesh Bhagat podcast OpenTelemetry site Splunk site Cloud Monitoring site Cloud Spanner site Cloud SQL site Cloud Trace site Sqlcommenter now extending the vision of OpenTelemetry to databases blog Hosts Mark Mirchandani and Jan Kleinert

On the show this week, we’re talking about Google Cloud Reader, a nifty podcast we created to narrate Google Tech blog posts. Host Jenny Brown tells us her inspiration for creating Google Cloud Reader and she and cohost Stephanie Wong walk us through a series of published episodes. First up, we learn what Cloud SQL Maintenance is and how customers can customize maintenance schedules to limit the impacts of downtime. Region picker is the topic of our next segment, and we hear how it helps projects stay cost efficient while conserving resources. Using three inputs, companies can decide quickly which region offers the best balance between cost, latency, and carbon footprint for them. Next, we learn about search abandonment’s effect on brand loyalty and how important it is for the right products to show in search results. We tackle the working environment with the next piece, redefining productivity to make it more personal and less robotic and offering advice on being productive while maintaining a good work-life balance. Making learning more personalized is the subject of our next segment. We hear how Google is using AI to aid the instruction of students no matter their learning style. Building diversity, equity, and inclusion into companies is important for success, and our last segment offers advice on how to incorporate DEI initiatives to ensure employees feel valued. Cool things of the week Build a data mesh on Google Cloud with Dataplex, now generally available blog From watersheds to Koala habitats - tackling ecosystem restoration with data blog Interview Understanding Cloud SQL Maintenance: why is it needed? blog Cloud SQL site Faster, cheaper, greener? Pick the Google Cloud region that’s right for you blog Google Cloud Region Picker on GitHub site Reduce your cloud carbon footprint with new Active Assist recommendations blog Research: Search abandonment has a lasting impact on brand loyalty blog Why Search Abandonment Is the Metric That Matters video The Google Workspace guide to productivity and wellbeing blog New Google Cloud Student Success Services help educators scale individualized learning blog Why representation matters: 6 tips on how to build DEI into your business blog Why representation matters blog Hosts Stephanie Wong and Jenny Brown

Guests Leigha Jarett and Debi Cabrera from the Looker team join Mark Mirchandani this week to talk about this powerful tool. Looker, Google’s data analytics platform, was built to provide enterprise companies with customizable analytics tools that allow anyone to get the data they need when they need it. This facilitates better business decisions. Leigha talks about how Looker and LookML keep data consistent among data analysts no matter where they pull data from or what they do with it. Data is more trustworthy, fostering a positive data-driven business. She details how LookML works, from database connection to metric creation, and tells us how easy it is for non-data engineers to work with as well. Robust data analysis based on trusted data points used to drive decision making is how Looker builds an environment of business intelligence rather than simple reporting. By offering easy integration into other Google tools like Data Studio and BigQuery, Looker is easy to set up, learn, and use. Our guests help listeners navigate Looker’s Explore From Here functionality and explain how it could help them answer important business questions. With advanced admin permissioning, Looker also helps limit the chaos that comes with multiple people accessing the same data. Later, we hear real-world examples of companies taking the Looker journey. Our guests offer advice based on these experiences with clients and talk about how client feedback has influenced new Looker tools, like the Looker Tableau Connector that’s coming soon. We hear about the relationship between BigQuery and Looker and suggestions for companies newly embarking on their data journey. Leigha Jarett Leigha is a Product Manager for Looker’s application platform. She focuses on making Looker both simple and powerful for developers. Debi Cabrera Debi recently became a Developer Advocate after being at Looker for three years as an Engagement Manager and StratOps PgM. You can find her on Linkedin Cool things of the week Introducing a Google Cloud architecture diagramming tool blog Black History Month: Celebrating the success of Black founders with Google Cloud: DOSS blog Interview Looker site LookML site Data Studio site Looker Connect site Looker Documentation docs Looker Products Page site Tableau site Google Cloud Training site Google Cloud Skills Boost site Looker and BigQuery Important Considerations whitepaper BigQuery Playlist videos Data Analytics Playlist videos Looker Channel videos Contact Google Cloud Support site Request a Free Trial site What’s something cool you’re working on? Debi is planning her wedding! Hosts Mark Mirchandani and Debi Cabrera

On the show this week, Mark Mirchandani and Stephanie Wong share two popular episodes of Bruno Aziza’s YouTube series Data Journeys. First up, Bruno talks with Aaron Biller of Postmates about their triangle of complex data that includes customer, courier, and merchant. He details their data storage and analytics structure, describing it as a reverse pyramid of tons of data with few engineers to manage and analyze it. To handle this, Postmates takes a stay-out-of-the-way approach by providing good data and letting the analysts do what they do best without micromanaging. Aaron talks about this data architecture, including the use of BigQuery as data lakes to keep data storage simple, and how Google collaboration tools streamline access and authorization tasks. Communication and flexibility are important, Aaron tells us, and he offers other advice for companies designing data systems. Feedback loops, dedicated training, and an open environment with no silos also help foster a productive, healthy data workplace. Matteo of Delivery Hero speaks to Bruno next. With the goal of increasing their global reach and offerings, it’s important that Delivery Hero has a smooth data system. Matteo outlines the new data structure they’ve built to ease onboarding of new companies and territories and describes different use cases for their data. From determining the number of delivery people necessary in each area to offering personalized customer recommendations, Delivery Hero uses Google offerings like Google Analytics and BigQuery to interpret collected data. Matteo details how they tailor data infrastructures for each use case and offers tips to help companies think through their data infrastructure design. Don’t work in a bubble, Matteo stresses, and focus on thorough onboarding of team members and clear communication with colleagues and customers. Bruno Aziza Bruno is the Head of Data & Analytics at Google Cloud. He specializes in everything data, from data analytics, to business intelligence, data science, and artificial intelligence. Before working at Google, he worked at companies like Business Objects when it went IPO and Oracle, where his team led a big turnarounds in the business analytics industry. Bruno also had the opportunity to help launch startups like Alpine Data (now part of Tibco). Sisense and AtScale and helped Microsoft grow its Data unit into a $1B business. He has been educated in the US, France, the UK, and Germany and has written two books on Data Analytics and Performance Management. In his spare time, Bruno writes a monthly column on Forbes.com on everything Data, AI and Analytics. Aaron Biller Aaron is the Manager of Data Engineering at Postmates. Matteo Fava Matteo is Senior Director of Global Data Products and Analytics at Delivery Hero. Cool things of the week Celebrating National Muffin Day with machine learning blog Managed Istio-based service mesh on our managed GKE clusters: Anthos Service Mesh comes to GKE Autopilot blog Interview Data Journeys videos Episode 12: How Postmates delivers on data needs with just six data engineers video Episode 5: How Delivery Hero uses data to deliver meals video BigQuery site Google Workspace site Dataproc site Pub/Sub site Google Analytics site Looker site Tableau site Data Studio site GCP Podcast Episode 266: Data Analytics Launches with Bruno Aziza and Eric Schmidt podcast GCP Podcast Episode 281: Google Cloud Next Data, Analytics, and AI Launches with Eric Schmidt and Bruno Aziza podcast What’s something cool you’re working on? Steph is working on the next Ask Google Cloud event and she wants your Kubernetes questions! Hosts Mark Mirchandani and Stephanie Wong

Brian Dorsey and Kaslin Fields welcome Kat Cosgrove of Pulumi this week to talk about what’s new with Kubernetes 1.24. Pulumi is infrastructure as code, allowing developers to use whatever language they are comfortable with to create and test infrastructure. Kat walks us through typical Pulumi infrastructure test scenarios to demonstrate the benefits of this software, especially with GCP. In the new Kubernetes release, one of the biggest updates is the removal of Dockershim. If you’re using a managed Kubernetes service through GCP, this update should not affect you, Kat tells us. She clears up some common Docker misconceptions and tells us how Kubernetes and Docker still work together. Kat describes the situations where this update might affect certain projects and how to tell if you’re one of the unlucky few. Later, we talk about the future of tech conferences. Kat is excited to get back to some in-person learning and networking, but at the same time, is hopeful that conferences will continue a hybrid model and allow some online interaction. Pulumi will be at KubeCon, Devlopsdays, and Jfokus in the next few months with some cool new free merchandise. Kat Cosgrove Kat is Staff Developer Advocate at Pulumi. Cool things of the week Find products faster with the new All products page blog Introducing Ephemeral Containers blog Open sourcing the App Engine Standard Java runtime blog Interview Pulumi site Kubernetes site Docker site Kubernetes 1.24 Release Notes site GKE site We Didn’t Start the Fire: Communication Breakdowns and How to Prevent Them - Ian Coldwater, Twilio & Kat Cosgrove, JFrog video Jfokus site Devopsdays Chicago site KubeCon EU Valencia site What’s something cool you’re working on? Brian just started releasing the next six episodes of VMs End-to-end. It’s a video series all about Compute Engine, starting with a discussion of building reliable systems from unreliable components. Kaslin is working on the GKE/OSS K8s Events. Cloud OnAir Webinar - February 24th Innovators Hive - March 29-30 Google Cloud Innovators Program OSPO Panel on Dockershim Deprecation - March 31st Hosts Brian Dorsey and Kaslin Fields

This week on the podcast, Wael Manasra and Cody Oss join hosts Carter Morgan and Mark Mirchandani to chat about new branding in Cloud SDK and gcloud CLI. Google Cloud SDK was built and designed to take over mundane development tasks, allowing engineers to focus on specialized features and solutions. The SDK documentation and tutorials are an important part of this as well. With clear instructions, developers can easily make use of Cloud SDK. Software Development Kits have evolved so much over the years that recently, Cody, Wael, and their teams have found it necessary to redefine and rethink SDKs. The popularity of cloud projects and distributed systems, for example, means changes to kit requirements. The update is meant to reevaluate the software included in SDKs and CLIs and to more accurately represent what the products offer. Giving developers the tools they need in the place they work means giving developers code language options, providing thorough instruction, and listening to feedback. These are the goals of this redesign. The Google Cloud SDK contains downloadable parts and web publications. Our guests explain the types of software and documentation in each group and highlight the importance of documentation and supporting materials like tutorials. The Cloud Console is a great place for developers to start building solutions using the convenient point-and-click tools that are available. When these actions need to be repeated, the downloadable Command Line Interface tool can do the work. Cody talks about authentication and gcloud, including its relationship to client libraries. He walks us through the steps a typical developer might take when using Google products and how they relate to the SDK and CLI. Through examples, Wael helps us further understand client libraries and how they can interact with the CLI. The Cloud SDK is a work in progress. Our guests welcome your feedback for future updates! Wael Manasra Wael manages the gcloud CLI, the client libraries for all GCP services, and the general Cloud SDK developer experience. Cody Oss Cody works on the Go Cloud Client libraries where he strives to provide an delightful and idiomatic experience to all the Gophers on Google Cloud. Cool things of the week Google Tau VMs deliver over 40% price-performance advantage to customers blog Find products faster with the new All products page blog Interview Cloud SDK site Cloud SDK Documentation docs Go site Google Cloud site Cloud Storage site Cloud Storage Documentation docs Cloud Code site Cloud Run site GKE site Cloud Functions site Cloud Client Libraries docs Cloud Shell site Cloud Shell Editor docs What’s something cool you’re working on? Carter is working on his comedy. Hosts Carter Morgan and Mark Mirchandani

Carter Morgan and Stephanie Wong host Shopify guests Camilo Lopez and Tai Dickerson this week. Shopify streamlines the online purchasing process so merchants and customers can transact with confidence. Camilo and Tai talk in-depth about Shopify’s tech stack and why the choices made are so important to performance. Shopify engineers use a combination of Ruby on Rails, MySQL and Google products like Kubernetes. Resiliency systems like active-active configurations, chat ops for quick solutions, and bot and overload protection are worked in. By leveraging these tools and staying flexible in their resiliency efforts, Shopify is able to adjust to new merchant requirements and teams are able to work efficiently. While tech continues to progress and change, the Shopify culture remains a driving force for advancement, Camilo tells us. The company ideals and axioms help steer the brand and dictate which technologies they’ll use to solve new and changing client demands. The 2014 outage shaped the future of these cultural ideals, emphasizing the need for quick action and resiliency components like constraints to ensure system safety. Shopify engineers also built enhanced testing tools like Toxiproxy to simulate poor network conditions and account for potential issues. The 2021 Black Friday Cyber Monday shopping season was Shopify’s biggest yet. Camilo and Tai describe how Shopify’s resiliency culture and intense prep work made the biggest shopping weekend of the year so successful. By offering educational tools and a support network that values good communication, their company culture continues to grow, and Tai tells us how it’s not just the software that should be resilient. Building a resilient, flexible company culture is just as important. Camilo talks about Shopify’s recent shift to a completely remote work place and the new challenges and opportunities it presents. Camilo Lopez Camilo has worked at Shopify for more than 10 years, he has been an IC and a manager leading teams that take care of Shopify’s scalability and resiliency. Tai Dickerson Tai is a production engineer at Shopify, where she shares her passion for resilience engineering with others via paper discussions and as a leader in Shopify’s Resiliency SIG. Cool things of the week Machine images is GA docs New Cloud Logging and Monitoring capabilities Monitoring third-party applications: MariaDB docs Monitoring third-party applications: MySQL docs Monitoring third-party applications: Memcached docs Starting with version 2.8.0, the Ops Agent supports Ubuntu 21.10. For more information, see Linux operating systems docs Interview Shopify site Kubernetes site GKE site Kafka site Redis site Elastic Search site Memcached docs Toxiproxy site Shopify Engineering site Shopify Careers site BFCM Twitter Thread site Shopify engineers deliver on peak performance during Black Friday Cyber Monday 2021 blog Cloud, Load, and Modular Code: What 2022 Looks Like for Shopify blog Terri Haber on Resiliency at Scale site Terri Haber on Enforced Pacing site Bart Jedrocha on Load Testing site Bart Jedrocha on Tooling for Load Testing site Bart Jedrocha on The Future of Load Testing site Ryan McIlmoyl on Code Red site Ryan McIlmoyl on Working with IMOC site Camilo Lopez on The 2014 Outage site Camilo Lopez on Holiday Season Learnings site Tai Dickerson on Doing Things Differently site Tai Dickerson on Learning & Community site What’s something cool you’re working on? Stephanie is working on season 2 of the Where the Internet Lives podcast. Carter is working on season 2 of VM End to End. Hosts Carter Morgan and Stephanie Wong

We’re back for a new, exciting year of the Google Cloud Platform Podcast! Mark Mirchandani and Carter Morgan start 2022 with a jointly hosted interview with Anton Chuvakin and Timothy Peacock of the Cloud Security Podcast team. Our guest, Phil Venables, is here to tell us about the driving trends in cloud security today. Phil starts the show with a discussion on the advances in cloud security in general and how it compares with on-prem security. Megatrends like economies of scale and competition between cloud providers benefit cloud users by allowing better security for less money. Cloud environments tend to be simpler and therefore easier to manage, and with scaling and geographic location options, cloud projects allow more flexibility to reach security and sustainability goals. Phil talks about the iteration process of advances in security based on customer requirements and how this builds client trust. The Shared Responsibility Model, where the cloud provider runs a secure infrastructure and the customer configures their project securely in the cloud, is a great start, Phil tells us. But with Shared Fate, he sees the provider crossing the responsibility barrier to work together with the client towards a secure project through actions like analyzation of security defaults. Customer feedback helps Google Cloud make a better product, which in turn helps customers, creating an environment of reliability and shared trust. We talk about how the Shared Fate model and shared incentives work together to create a closer partnership between cloud providers and customers, and Phil elaborates on the idea of project security as an immune system. We tackle the idea of security diversity and whether it benefits clients to expand their security outside of cloud provider offerings. Phil helps security novices understand valuable feature-add security services and what to look for in the future. Phil Venables Phil leads the risk, security, compliance, and privacy teams for Google Cloud. Prior to joining Google Cloud, Phil was a Partner at Goldman Sachs where he held multiple roles over a long career, initially as their first Chief Information Security Officer, a role he held for 17 years. Before Goldman Sachs, Phil held multiple CISO roles as well as senior engineering roles across a range of finance, energy and technology companies. Cool things of the week 2022 Resolution: Learn Google Cloud, free of charge blog How to build a virtual employment center on Google Cloud & Workspace video Interview Cloud Security Podcast podcast IT Leaders: Pay Attention To These 8 Security Megatrends In 2022 article GCP Podcast Episode 218: Chronicle Security with Dr. Anton Chuvakin and Ansh Patniak podcast What’s something cool you’re working on? Mark and Carter are working on some cool new changes to the podcast. Hosts Carter Morgan, Mark Mirchandani, Anton Chuvakin and Timothy Peacock

We’re finishing out 2021 with a celebration of our favorite episodes and topics from the year! From new tools for Cost Optimization in GKE and advances in AI to tips for improving feelings of imposter syndrome, Carter Morgan, Stephanie Wong, and Mark Mirchandani share memorable moments from 2021 and look forward to future episodes. Carter Morgan Carter Morgan is Developer Advocate for Google Cloud, where he creates and hosts content on Google’s Youtube channel, co-hosts several Google Cloud podcasts, and designs courses like the Udacity course “Scalable Microservices with Kubernetes” he co-created with Kelsey Hightower. Carter Morgan is an international standup comedian, who’s approach of creating unique moments with the audience in front of him has seen him perform all over the world, including in Paris, London, the Melbourne International Comedy Festival with Joe White. And in 2019, and the 2019 Edinburgh Fringe Festival. Previously, he was a programmer for the USAF and Microsoft. Stephanie Wong Stephanie Wong is a Developer Advocate focusing on online content across all Google Cloud products. She’s a host of the GCP Podcast and the Where the Internet Lives podcast, along with many GCP Youtube video series. She is the winner of a 2021 Webby Award for her content about data centers. Previously she was a Customer Engineer at Google and at Oracle. Outside of her tech life she is a former pageant queen and hip hop dancer and has an unhealthy obsession with dogs. Mark Mirchandani Mark Mirchandani is a developer advocate for Google Cloud, occasional host of the Google Cloud Platform podcast, and helps create content for users. Cool things of the week Anthos Multi-Cloud v2 is generally available docs Machine learning, Google Kubernetes Engine, and more: 10 free training offers to take advantage of before 2022 blog The past, present, and future of Kubernetes with Eric Brewer blog GCP Podcast Episode 124: VP of Infrastructure Eric Brewer podcast Our Favorite Episodes of 2021 Mark’s Favorites GCP Podcast Episode 252: GKE Cost Optimization with Kaslin Fields and Anthony Bushong podcast GCP Podcast Episode 267: Cloud Firestore for Users who are new to Firestore podcast GKE Essentials videos Beyond Your Bill vidoes Stephanie’s Favorites GCP Podcast Episode 270: Traditional vs. Service Networking with Ryan Przybyl podcast GCP Podcast Episode 271: The Future of Service Networking with Ryan Przybyl podcast GCP Podcast Episode 279: MLB with Perry Pierce and JoAnn Brereton podcast Carter’s Favorites GCP Podcast Episode 284: State of DevOps Report 2021 with Nathen Harvey and Dustin Smith podcast GCP Podcast Episode 287: Imposter Syndrome with Carter Morgan podcast Most Popular Episodes of 2021 GCP Podcast Episode Episode 264: SRE III with Steve McGhee and Yuri Grinshtey podcast GCP Podcast Episode 258: The Power of Serverless with Aparna Sinha and Philip Beevers podcast GCP Podcast Episode 253: Data Governance with Jessi Ashdown and Uri Gilad podcast GCP Podcast Episode 263: SAP + Apigee: The Power of APIs with Benjamin Schuler and Dave Feuer podcast GCP Podcast Episode 271: The Future of Service Networking with Ryan Przybyl podcast Sound Effects Attribution “Dun Dun Duuun” by Divenorth of Freesound.org “Cash Register” by Kiddpark of Freesound.org “Jingles and Pings” by BristolStories of HDInteractive.com “Time – Inception Theme” Composed by Hanz Zimmer (super-low-budget midi version) Hosts Stephanie Wong, Carter Morgan and Mark Mirchandani

Carter Morgan takes the guest seat today to chat with host Stephanie Wong about imposter syndrome in tech. The technology ecosystem is constantly changing, with new advances every day. To keep up, tech workers are learning and developing new skills so frequently that at times it can feel as though they don’t actually know everything they need to know. Here is where self-doubt can really take hold. Imposter syndrome is most prevalent around transition points, Carter tells us. A new job or new responsibility, for example, opens tech workers to feelings of inadequacy. But there’s hope, and he explains how we can learn and develop skills to overcome this difficulty. Through tales of his own experiences, Carter offers supportive tips he’s learned, including how important it is to communicate with your manager and seek help rather than isolating. Unhealthy comparisons can foster self-doubt as well. Depth and breadth of knowledge are important factors to consider as well, and Carter points out that each has its benefits. Knowing when to go deep into a subject and when to obtain surface level knowledge can foster a sense of ease and adequacy in knowledge workers. Stephanie shares her experiences with imposter syndrome, highlighting the difference between self-perception and audience perception and why it’s important to give yourself credit for what you’ve accomplished. Breaking into a new space can be intimidating. Carter walks us through important steps to take to start tackling imposter syndrome from the beginning, including the effects of positive mentorships. This month, Carter is giving a presentation at Cloud Learn (Dec 8-9, 2021), and he wraps up this episode with a sneak peak. Carter Morgan Carter Morgan is Developer Advocate for Google Cloud, where he creates and hosts content on Google’s Youtube channel, co-hosts several Google Cloud podcasts, and designs courses like the Udacity course “Scalable Microservices with Kubernetes” he co-created with Kelsey Hightower. Carter Morgan is an international standup comedian, who’s approach of creating unique moments with the audience in front of him has seen him perform all over the world, including in Paris, London, the Melbourne International Comedy Festival with Joe White. And in 2019, and the 2019 Edinburgh Fringe Festival. Previously, he was a programmer for the USAF and Microsoft. Cool things of the week Cloud Learn site 5 things not to do with Cloud Functions, and 5 things you absolutely should do instead blog Interview Cloud Learn site What do I really need to know to succeed at work? blog Hosts Stephanie Wong