GCP Basics · Module 01

Foundations – Regions, Resource Hierarchy, gcloud and Billing

Learn how Google Cloud is laid out (regions, zones, the global network), organise work in organizations, folders and projects, drive everything from the gcloud CLI, and keep spending under control with billing accounts, budgets and labels.

Practice interactively →

What you will learn

• Choose a region and zone and explain why the VPC network is global
• Organise resources in an organization, folders and projects and know what is inherited
• Use the console, Cloud Shell and gcloud configurations
• Link projects to billing accounts, set budgets and use labels for cost reports
• Enable APIs, read quotas and search resources with Cloud Asset Inventory

Lessons

1. Regions, Zones and the Global Network

   A region is a geographic area with three or more zones; zonal, regional and global resources fail in different ways, and Google’s private backbone connects them all.

2. Resource Hierarchy: Organization, Folders, Projects

   Every resource belongs to a project; projects sit in folders under an organization, and IAM and organization policies set higher up are inherited downwards.

3. Console, Cloud Shell and the gcloud CLI

   Use the console to explore, Cloud Shell for a ready-made terminal, and gcloud with named configurations to script everything against the right project.

4. Billing Accounts, Budgets and Labels

   Projects are paid through a Cloud Billing account; budgets send alerts (they do not cap spending), labels split costs, and the BigQuery billing export gives you detailed data.

5. APIs, Quotas and Cloud Asset Inventory

   Every service is an API you enable per project; quotas protect you and Google from runaway usage, and Cloud Asset Inventory searches and exports what exists across projects.