Cloud Run is Google Cloud's fully managed serverless platform for containers. Deploy any containerized application and let Google handle scaling, security, and infrastructure.
Why Cloud Run?
- Deploy any container (any language, any framework)
- Scale to zero - pay nothing when idle
- Scale to thousands of instances automatically
- HTTPS endpoints with custom domains
- Fully managed - no Kubernetes knowledge needed
Cloud Run vs Other Services
Cloud Run sits between Cloud Functions (simple functions) and GKE (full Kubernetes). It's perfect for containerized web apps, APIs, and microservices.
Deploy Your First Service
Step 1: Create a Dockerfile
FROM node:20-alpine → WORKDIR /app → COPY . . → RUN npm install → CMD ["node", "server.js"]
Step 2: Build and Push
gcloud builds submit --tag gcr.io/PROJECT_ID/my-app
Step 3: Deploy to Cloud Run
gcloud run deploy my-app --image gcr.io/PROJECT_ID/my-app --platform managed --region us-central1 --allow-unauthenticated
Key Features
- Automatic HTTPS - SSL certificates managed for you
- Traffic splitting - Canary and blue-green deployments
- Cloud SQL integration - Connect to managed databases
- Secret Manager - Securely inject secrets
- VPC connector - Access private resources
Pricing
Cloud Run charges for CPU, memory, and requests. The free tier includes 2 million requests/month and 360,000 GB-seconds of memory. Most small apps run for free.
Best Practices
- Use multi-stage Docker builds for smaller images
- Set appropriate CPU/memory limits
- Use startup probes for slow-starting apps
- Configure min instances for latency-sensitive apps
Need GCP Consulting?
CloudElevate helps teams adopt Google Cloud Platform. From Cloud Run deployments to full GKE architectures, we've got you covered.
Contact us at info@cloudelevate.ai for GCP consulting.
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