GCP for DevOps — GCP Global Infrastructure

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GCP Global Infrastructure

Google Cloud Platform operates one of the largest and fastest networks in the world. Understanding how GCP’s infrastructure is organized helps you make smart decisions about where to deploy your resources.

Regions and Zones

GCP organizes its infrastructure into regions and zones:

┌───────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│                GCP Infrastructure                  │
├───────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│                                                    │
│  Region: us-central1 (Iowa)                       │
│  ├── Zone: us-central1-a                          │
│  ├── Zone: us-central1-b                          │
│  ├── Zone: us-central1-c                          │
│  └── Zone: us-central1-f                          │
│                                                    │
│  Region: europe-west1 (Belgium)                   │
│  ├── Zone: europe-west1-b                         │
│  ├── Zone: europe-west1-c                         │
│  └── Zone: europe-west1-d                         │
│                                                    │
│  Region: asia-south1 (Mumbai)                     │
│  ├── Zone: asia-south1-a                          │
│  ├── Zone: asia-south1-b                          │
│  └── Zone: asia-south1-c                          │
│                                                    │
└───────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
  • Region — A specific geographical area (e.g., us-central1 is Iowa, USA). A region contains multiple zones.
  • Zone — An isolated deployment area within a region (e.g., us-central1-a). Each zone has independent power, cooling, and networking.

Real-World Analogy: A region is like a city, and zones are like different neighborhoods in that city. If one neighborhood loses power, the others keep running.

Current Scale (2026)

Metric Count
Regions 40+
Zones 121+
Countries 30+
Edge locations (Cloud CDN) 187+
Subsea cable investments 20+

List Available Regions

$ gcloud compute regions list --format="table(name,description,status)"

NAME                  DESCRIPTION            STATUS
asia-east1            Changhua County, Taiwan   UP
asia-east2            Hong Kong                 UP
asia-northeast1       Tokyo, Japan              UP
asia-south1           Mumbai, India             UP
europe-west1          St. Ghislain, Belgium     UP
us-central1           Council Bluffs, Iowa      UP
us-east1              Moncks Corner, SC         UP
us-west1              The Dalles, Oregon        UP
...

List Zones in a Region

$ gcloud compute zones list --filter="region:us-central1"

NAME             REGION        STATUS
us-central1-a    us-central1   UP
us-central1-b    us-central1   UP
us-central1-c    us-central1   UP
us-central1-f    us-central1   UP

Google’s Private Network

What sets GCP apart from other clouds is Google’s private global fiber network. When your data travels between GCP regions, it stays on Google’s private network — not the public internet.

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│              Google's Global Network                        │
│                                                             │
│  Your App (us-central1)                                    │
│       │                                                     │
│       ├── Google's Private Fiber ──→ europe-west1          │
│       │   (never touches public internet)                   │
│       │                                                     │
│       └── Google's Private Fiber ──→ asia-south1           │
│                                                             │
│  Traditional Cloud:                                        │
│  Your App ──→ Public Internet ──→ Other Region             │
│               (slower, less secure)                         │
└────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

This means:

  • Lower latency between regions
  • Higher security — data never traverses the public internet
  • More consistent performance

Choosing a Region

Factor Recommendation
Proximity to users Choose the region closest to your customers
Service availability Not all services are available in all regions
Compliance Some data must stay in specific countries
Cost Prices vary by region (Iowa is often cheapest)
Redundancy Use multi-region for critical workloads

For learning, use us-central1 — it has the widest service availability and competitive pricing.

Set Default Region and Zone

$ gcloud config set compute/region us-central1

Updated property [compute/region].

$ gcloud config set compute/zone us-central1-a

Updated property [compute/zone].

$ gcloud config list compute/

[compute]
region = us-central1
zone = us-central1-a

Multi-Region and Dual-Region

Some GCP services support multi-region locations for higher availability:

Location Type Example Use Case
Zone us-central1-a Single-zone resources (dev, test)
Region us-central1 Regional resources (prod)
Dual-region nam4 (Iowa + SC) High availability storage
Multi-region US, EU, ASIA Global storage, max availability

Common Mistakes

Mistake Fix
Deploying everything in one zone Spread across zones for availability
Choosing a far-away region Pick the region closest to your users
Ignoring region pricing differences Check pricing per region before deploying
Not setting default region/zone Set defaults to avoid specifying them every time

Quick Reference

Command Description
gcloud compute regions list List all regions
gcloud compute zones list List all zones
gcloud config set compute/region <region> Set default region
gcloud config set compute/zone <zone> Set default zone
gcloud config get compute/region Get current default region

Next → Resource Hierarchy

Updated:

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