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Google App Engine (also referred to as GAE or App Engine) is a cloud computing platform used as a service for developing and hosting of web applications. Applications are sandboxed and run across multiple Google-managed servers.[2] GAE supports automatic scaling for web applications, allocating more resources to the web application as the amount of requests increases.[3] It was released as a preview in April 2008, and launched officially in September 2011.
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Developer(s) | |
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Initial release | April 7, 2008[1] |
Type | Platform as a service |
Website | cloud |
Applications written in Go, PHP, Java, Python, Node.js, .NET, and Ruby are supported by the App Engine, and other languages can be supported with additional cost.[4] The free version of the service offers a standard environment with limited resources. Fees are charged for additional storage, bandwidth, or instance hours.[5]
Features
editGoogle App Engine primarily supports Go, PHP, Java, Python, Node.js, .NET, and Ruby applications, although it can also support other languages via "custom runtimes".[4]
Python web frameworks that run on Google App Engine include Django, CherryPy, Pyramid, Flask, and web2py as well as a Google-written webapp framework and several others designed specifically for the platform that were created after the release.[6] Any Python framework that supports the WSGI using the CGI adapter can be used to create an application, and the framework can be uploaded with the developed application. Third-party libraries written in Python may also be uploaded.[7][8]
SDK version 1.2.2 added support for bulk downloads of data using Python.[9]
App Engine's integrated Google Cloud Datastore database has a SQL-like syntax called "GQL" (Google Query Language). GQL does not support the join statement.[10] Instead, one-to-many and many-to-many relationships can be accomplished using ReferenceProperty()
.[11]
Google Cloud Firestore is the successor to Google Cloud Datastore and replaces GQL with a document-based query method that treats stored objects as collections of documents. Firestore was launched in October 2017.[12]
Backends
editIn Google I/O 2011, Google announced App Engine Backends, which were allowed to run continuously and consume more memory.[13][14] The Backend API was deprecated as of March 13, 2014, in favor of the Modules API.[15]
Google Cloud SQL
editIn October 2011, Google previewed a zero maintenance SQL database, which supports JDBC and DB-API.[16] This service allows creating, configuring, and using relational databases with App Engine applications. Google Cloud SQL supports MySQL 8.0, 5.7, and 5.6.[17]
Restrictions
edit- Developers have read-only access to the file system on App Engine. Applications can use only virtual file systems.
- App Engine can only execute code called from an HTTP request (scheduled background tasks allow for self-calling HTTP requests).
- Users may upload arbitrary Python modules, but only if they are pure-Python. C and Pyrex modules are not supported.
- Java applications may only use a subset (The JRE Class White List) of the classes from the JRE standard edition.[18] This restriction does not exist with the App Engine Standard Java8 runtime.
- A process started on the server to answer a request can't last more than 60 seconds (with the 1.4.0 release, this restriction does not apply to background jobs anymore).
- Does not support sticky sessions (a.k.a. session affinity), only replicated sessions are supported including limitation of the amount of data being serialized and time for session serialization.
Application hosting
editWhile other services let users install and configure nearly any *NIX compatible software, App Engine requires developers to use only its supported languages, APIs, and frameworks. Current APIs allow storing and retrieving data from the document-oriented Google Cloud Datastore database, making HTTP requests, sending e-mail, manipulating images, and caching. Google Cloud SQL[19] can be used for App Engine applications requiring a relational MySQL compatible database backend.[20]
Per-day and per-minute quotas place restrictions on bandwidth and CPU use, number of requests served, number of concurrent requests, and calls to the various APIs. Individual requests are terminated if they take more than 60 seconds or return more than 32MB of data.
Portability concerns
editDevelopers worry that the applications will not be portable from App Engine and fear being locked into the technology.[21] In response, there are a number of projects to create open-source back-ends for the various proprietary/closed APIs of app engine, especially the datastore.
AppScale automatically deploys and scales unmodified Google App Engine applications over popular public and private cloud systems and on-premises clusters.[22] It can run Python, Java, PHP, and Go applications on EC2, Google Compute Engine, Azure, and other cloud vendors.
The Web2py web framework offers migration between SQL Databases and Google App Engine, however, it doesn't support several App Engine-specific features such as transactions and namespaces.[23]
Kubernetes is an open-source job control system invented by Google to abstract away the infrastructure so that open-source (e.g. Docker) containerized applications can run on many types of infrastructure, such as Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, and others.
Usage quotas
editGoogle App Engine requires a Google account to get started, and an account may allow the developer to register up to 25 free applications and an unlimited number of paid applications.[24]
Google App Engine defines usage quotas for free applications. Extensions to these quotas can be requested, and application authors can pay for additional resources.[25]
See also
editReferences
edit- ^ "Introducing Google App Engine + our new blog". Google App Engine Blog. April 7, 2008. Retrieved December 3, 2019.
- ^ "Python Runtime Environment - Google App Engine - Google Code". February 22, 1999. Retrieved February 14, 2012.
- ^ Sanderson, Dan (2009). Programming Google App Engine: Build and Run Scalable Web Apps on Google's Infrastructure. O'Reilly Media. ISBN 978-0-596-52272-8.
- ^ a b "Google App Engine Documentation | App Engine Documentation". Google Cloud. Retrieved December 3, 2019.
- ^ "Quotas - Google App Engine - Google Code". February 22, 1999. Retrieved February 14, 2012.
- ^ "AppEngineFrameworks - tipfy - The almighty little framework for Google App Engine - Google Project Hosting". Retrieved February 14, 2012.
- ^ "What Is Google App Engine? - Google App Engine - Google Code". February 22, 1999. Retrieved February 14, 2012.
- ^ "webapp Overview - Google App Engine - Google Code". February 22, 1999. Retrieved February 14, 2012.
- ^ "Uploading and Downloading Data - Google App Engine - Google Code". February 22, 1999. Retrieved February 14, 2012.
- ^ Google Developers (April 7, 2008). "Campfire One: Introducing Google App Engine (pt. 3)" – via YouTube.
{{cite web}}
:|last=
has generic name (help) - ^ "Modeling Entity Relationships - Google App Engine — Google Developers". June 26, 2012. Retrieved July 17, 2012.
- ^ "Google launches Cloud Firestore, a new document database for app developers". TechCrunch. October 3, 2017. Retrieved July 16, 2018.
- ^ Google I/O 2011: App Engine Backends on YouTube
- ^ "Backends Python API Overview - App Engine standard environment for Python - Google Cloud Platform". Google Cloud Platform.
- ^ "Backends Python API Overview - App Engine standard environment for Python - Google Cloud Platform". Google Cloud Platform.
- ^ "Google Cloud SQL: your database in the cloud - The official Google Code blog". October 6, 2011.
- ^ "Cloud SQL Features - Cloud SQL Documentation - Google Cloud Platform". Google Cloud Platform.
- ^ "The JRE Class White List - Google App Engine - Google Developers". February 22, 1999. Retrieved June 14, 2013.
- ^ "Google Cloud SQL Databases - Cloud SQL - Google Cloud Platform". Google Cloud Platform.
- ^ "Using Google Cloud SQL - App Engine standard environment for Java - Google Cloud Platform". Google Cloud Platform.
- ^ Gallagher, Sean (April 9, 2008). "Analysis: Google App Engine alluring, will be hard to escape". Ars Technica. Retrieved July 17, 2012.
- ^ AppScale Launches As An Open-Source Backup Equivalent To Google App Engine. TechCrunch (June 24, 2013). Retrieved on 2013-09-18.
- ^ [1] Archived February 20, 2010, at the Wayback Machine
- ^ "Google App Engine General Questions". Google Developers. Retrieved June 18, 2015.
- ^ "Understanding Application Quotas with Google App Engine". Retrieved April 16, 2010.
Bibliography
edit- Sanderson, Dan (October 26, 2012), Programming Google App Engine (2nd ed.), O'Reilly Media, p. 536, ISBN 978-1449398262
- de Jonge, Adriaan (October 31, 2011), Essential App Engine: Building High-Performance Java Apps with Google App Engine (1st ed.), Addison-Wesley Professional, p. 304, ISBN 978-0-321-74263-6
- Guermeur, Daniel; Unruh, Amy (November 24, 2010), Google App Engine Java and GWT Application Development (1st ed.), Packt Publishing, p. 480, ISBN 978-1-84969-044-7
- Roche, Kyle; Douglas, Jeff (December 31, 2009), Beginning Java Google App Engine (1st ed.), Apress, p. 375, ISBN 978-1-4302-2553-9
- Sanderson, Dan (November 23, 2009), Programming Google App Engine (1st ed.), O'Reilly Media, p. 400, ISBN 978-0-596-52272-8
- Severance, Charles (May 22, 2009), Using Google App Engine (1st ed.), O'Reilly Media, p. 262, ISBN 978-0-596-80069-7
- Ciurana, Eugene (February 2, 2009), Developing with Google App Engine (1st ed.), Apress, p. 164, ISBN 978-1-4302-1831-9
External links
edit- Official marketing page
- Official website
- Official Google Cloud Platform Blog
- Release notes
- Google App Engine - Run your web applications on Google's infrastructure - a technical talk by Google engineer Guido van Rossum at Stanford University. (online video archive)
- Benefits of adopting Google App Engine Archived February 2, 2017, at the Wayback Machine
- Using an external database with Google App Engine Archived August 6, 2017, at the Wayback Machine
- Java Frameworks and libraries supported
- Web2py book -- online documentation -- Google App Engine deployment recipe
- Google Cloud SQL Sample Projects
- Google Cloud supports node.js
- Appmd: Python development sample project. App Engine/django/Google Closure/Endpoints/Material design