Cloud Run adds min instances feature for latency-sensitive apps

#1

Post by anirudhmurali » Fri, Dec 11, 2020, 8:23 PM UTC

Cloud Run adds min instances feature for latency-sensitive apps
cloud.google.com

Re: Cloud Run adds min instances feature for latency-sensitive apps

#2

Post by speedgoose » Fri, Dec 11, 2020, 9:45 PM UTC

Just curious but not enough to read the documentation, is there a max setting or can I easily bankrupt my competitors with Apache bench running on a raspberry pi?

Re: Cloud Run adds min instances feature for latency-sensitive apps

#3

Post by minimaxir » Fri, Dec 11, 2020, 9:48 PM UTC

speedgoose wrote: post #2

Just curious but not enough to read the documentation, is there a max setting or can I easily bankrupt my competitors with Apache bench running on a raspberry pi?

There's both a max number of containers setting and a max concurrency limit per container setting.

FWIW, I do wish Google added some way to more explicitly prevent abuse with the containers. I had to take down my Cloud Run containers because people found ways to automate access to my services without rate limits, and Google's solution to that was to use a proxy which sorta defeats the point of using Cloud Run.

Re: Cloud Run adds min instances feature for latency-sensitive apps

#4

Post by netcyrax » Fri, Dec 11, 2020, 9:55 PM UTC

So if there's something always running .... isn't the same as having on always on server (with auto scaling of some sort)?

Re: Cloud Run adds min instances feature for latency-sensitive apps

#5

Post by jpochtar » Fri, Dec 11, 2020, 9:56 PM UTC

Does this apply to Firebase functions as well?

Re: Cloud Run adds min instances feature for latency-sensitive apps

#6

Post by shishy » Fri, Dec 11, 2020, 10:02 PM UTC

netcyrax wrote: post #4

So if there's something always running .... isn't the same as having on always on server (with auto scaling of some sort)?

Yes but still marginally easier to get it up and running

Re: Cloud Run adds min instances feature for latency-sensitive apps

#7

Post by davidspiess » Fri, Dec 11, 2020, 10:06 PM UTC

netcyrax wrote: post #4

So if there's something always running .... isn't the same as having on always on server (with auto scaling of some sort)?

It seems they want to replace their managed AppEngine service through Cloud Run in the long run.

Re: Cloud Run adds min instances feature for latency-sensitive apps

#8

Post by cocktailpeanuts » Fri, Dec 11, 2020, 10:07 PM UTC

I wonder how this compares to Cloudflare Workers Unbound https://blog.cloudflare.com/introducing-workers-unbound/

Re: Cloud Run adds min instances feature for latency-sensitive apps

#9

Post by ditonal » Fri, Dec 11, 2020, 10:07 PM UTC

AppEngine has had scale-to-zero for 15 years, but instead of having a coherent product strategy, why not just launch a different competing product every year which is missing features that already exist? AppEngine vs Cloud Functions vs Cloud Run, the reasons these all exist at the same time is not because it makes any sense for customers, but because Google PMs get promoted for launching new things rather than supporting existing products.

Re: Cloud Run adds min instances feature for latency-sensitive apps

#10

Post by steren » Fri, Dec 11, 2020, 10:08 PM UTC

netcyrax wrote: post #4

So if there's something always running .... isn't the same as having on always on server (with auto scaling of some sort)?

When a container is kept warm via " min-instances" but is not receiving requests ("idle"), its CPU costs 10x less than when it's actively processing requests, see pricing: https://cloud.google.com/run/pricing