Google Cloud Armor • Hacker News Board

Re: Google Cloud Armor

#11

Post by antoncohen » Thu, Mar 22, 2018, 12:52 AM UTC

I know people are saying this is just like Cloudflare, but there might be some real value differentiation here. Google has been doing some really advanced things in this area for a long time. I think I saw a research paper or talk from 5-10 years ago about how Google shows the impact of network policies before applying them, I just searched for it and couldn't find it[1]. The things like Preview Mode and Rich Rules Language could be very advanced.

[1] But I did find this page about their network research: https://research.google.com/teams/netsys/

Re: Google Cloud Armor

#12

Post by tssva » Thu, Mar 22, 2018, 12:57 AM UTC

greatamerican wrote: post #3

Nice. Cloudflare has had no competition for too long.

No competition? There are many CDN and DDOS protection services. Cloudflare's own copy claims they have 35% of the market which indicates there is certainly competition out there.

Re: Google Cloud Armor

#13

Post by meirelles » Thu, Mar 22, 2018, 12:57 AM UTC

foxylad wrote: post #8

Interesting - given Cloudflare's real value proposition and domination of their sector, I've been half expecting Google to buy them for a year now. Google are very good at internet plumbing, and I expect this to be a pretty compelling service. Serious competition and not being an acquisition target any more must have really hurt Cloudflare's value today.

Apparently, they don't support external origins yet. IMHO without this feature they can't be considered a direct competitor to CloudFlare. Also, CloudFlare lately is adding a bunch of very neat features, it's not just about DDoS.

Of course, for those who are already using GCP and depending on their needs is a great alternative.

Re: Google Cloud Armor

#14

Post by wslh » Thu, Mar 22, 2018, 12:59 AM UTC

Many people don't realize that Cloudflare also received funding from Google: https://blog.cloudflare.com/why-we-raised-110m-from-fidelity... it seems cheaper to include it in Google Cloud than buying the company.

Re: Google Cloud Armor

#15

Post by ktta » Thu, Mar 22, 2018, 1:15 AM UTC

greatamerican wrote: post #3

Nice. Cloudflare has had no competition for too long.

Cloudflare is 'dominating' because of their free tier. There are other services actual companies use. Fastly, Akamai, AWS Cloudfront, CacheFly and more.

Re: Google Cloud Armor

#16

Post by notamy » Thu, Mar 22, 2018, 1:36 AM UTC

ktta wrote: post #15

greatamerican wrote: post #3

Nice. Cloudflare has had no competition for too long.

Cloudflare is 'dominating' because of their free tier. There are other services actual companies use. Fastly, Akamai, AWS Cloudfront, CacheFly and more.

CF having that free tier is a HUGE reason me and people I know stick with it. None of us want to have to throw money at a CF-like service for a low-traffic site, or for an MVP, or... At some point, it definitely becomes worth it, but Cloudflare's free tier is a HUGE boon early on imho.

Re: Google Cloud Armor

#17

Post by manigandham » Thu, Mar 22, 2018, 1:47 AM UTC

antoncohen wrote: post #11

I know people are saying this is just like Cloudflare, but there might be some real value differentiation here. Google has been doing some really advanced things in this area for a long time. I think I saw a research paper or talk from 5-10 years ago about how Google shows the impact of network policies before applying them, I just searched for it and couldn't find it[1]. The things like Preview Mode and Rich Rules L…

Preview mode isnt that special, at least in this version: https://cloud.google.com/armor/docs/security-policy-concepts

Http load balancers already log all requests. Security policies decisions will also be logged, but in preview mode won't actually affect the traffic.

EDIT: looks like advanced rules are in alpha for only certain customers...

Re: Google Cloud Armor

#18

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Mar 22, 2018, 2:07 AM UTC

ktta wrote: post #15

greatamerican wrote: post #3

Nice. Cloudflare has had no competition for too long.

Cloudflare is 'dominating' because of their free tier. There are other services actual companies use. Fastly, Akamai, AWS Cloudfront, CacheFly and more.

[deleted]

Re: Google Cloud Armor

#19

Post by manigandham » Thu, Mar 22, 2018, 2:08 AM UTC

ktta wrote: post #15

greatamerican wrote: post #3

Nice. Cloudflare has had no competition for too long.

Cloudflare is 'dominating' because of their free tier. There are other services actual companies use. Fastly, Akamai, AWS Cloudfront, CacheFly and more.

They also provide incredible value at the pro and business tiers while other providers cost thousands for less features.

Fastly was good for technical setups but Cloudflare Workers blows away Varnish VCL config.

Re: Google Cloud Armor

#20

Post by puzzle » Thu, Mar 22, 2018, 2:13 AM UTC

antoncohen wrote: post #11

I know people are saying this is just like Cloudflare, but there might be some real value differentiation here. Google has been doing some really advanced things in this area for a long time. I think I saw a research paper or talk from 5-10 years ago about how Google shows the impact of network policies before applying them, I just searched for it and couldn't find it[1]. The things like Preview Mode and Rich Rules L…

What kind of network policies? Millions of years ago, Google used Cariden software to simulate what happened when links went down, QoS changes were applied, etc. From what I recall, at some point, the size of the network, new special hardware and the need for more flexibility outgrew the tool's capabilities, so IIRC it was supplanted by in-house solutions that were more real-time and fit into the new SDN architecture.