The Google Cloud Platform is a powerful tool that allows for the development of software that would otherwise be nearly impossible due to the cost prohibitive nature of the technology. The platform allows for development teams of limited size and scope to create enterprise level software in no time at all. This levels the playing field for ambitious startups with big dreams and small budgets. Google Cloud platform provides cloud based application programming interfaces, or APIs, and cloud based server side infrastructure.

This can replace a business's internal R&D departments as well as in house server rooms. Not only does this reduce the cost of development, but, it also broadens what a company can do with a limited amount of time and resources. One of the potential downsides of offloading your server side capabilities is the lack of control that an owner or IT manager may perceive they have.

This, luckily, can be assuaged with the indomitable stackdriver application that provides performance and diagnostics data to cloud users. Stackdriver can allow for monitoring, logging, tracing, error reporting and error alerting. This makes it the perfect tool for cloud users to manage and administrate their cloud computing systems. This is integral to network management specifically and can be the difference between software failure and success.

It is, thankfully, compatible with popular application components like Apache web server and Elasticsearch. In this article, we will discuss how to implement Stackdriver for multiple projects and multiple users so that your cloud projects are easier to manage.

To create a Stackdriver account, enable a GCP project to use Stackdriver. Then, create a Stackdriver account hosted by that selected project. In the navigation menu located in the expanded hamburger menu in the GCP console, select Stackdriver, then select monitoring. After that, you'll be sent to a series of dialogs that will allow you to set up both the new Stackdriver account and the GCP project you wish to connect to it. After that, you'll be able to add more projects, set alert setting, and add users to the Stackdriver account.

Typically, it's better to create separate Stackdriver accounts to manage each and every one of your GCP and AWS projects, according to Google Cloud Platform's best practices for Stackdriver management and provisioning. There are some rare exceptions when dealing with inordinately complex projects, but, in general, it's best to have separate accounts for each.

Further, a Stackdriver project can be a:

• Hosting project
• AWS connector project
• Monitored project
  

A hosting project is simply one that holds the monitoring configuration within it. It's an optional project that can help you organize your account. You can think of this as an empty GCP project that holds resources, VMs, logs, and other metrics for the Stackdriver account.

A monitored project is, simply, the project you want to actually monitor, the one you're developing. Technically, the hosting project is also a monitored one, but you'll want to keep it empty to avoid confusion. If you're just monitoring a single project, however, merging the hosting and the monitored project is just fine.

An AWS connector project, is a project linked to Amazon Web Services. Essentially, it's another monitored project, only it's outside Google.

Users assigned to a project monitored by your Stackdriver account, can be given permissions of owner (who can manage the entirety of the project and account), editor (who can make edits), viewer (who has read-only permissions), or browser.

Conclusion

Stackdriver, ultimately, is a tool used to manage and diagnose cloud services so that you can streamline your cloud projects. Stackdriver founding goal is to provide consistent monitoring across multiple service layers under a single SaaS, or software as a service, solution.

It improves the performance of applications running on the cloud and prevents multi cloud environments from becoming too complex to manage. It is a crucial tool for maintaining proper functionality of your development projects and might be the singular tool that saves your projects from disaster.

While looking at raw data may excite the raw passion of a data scientist, using colorful graphs and user friendly interfaces will come as a great relief for the rest of your IT team. Stackdriver drives innovation to previously overworked and under funded startups. If you have a cloud based business, or project, then Stackdriver is an essential tool for survival.

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About the Author

Dr. Diane Schleier-Keller is a business strategist and finance columnist. She has 3 years of experience in M&A and has been traveling the world to help train entrepreneurs to succeed in their business. You may also connect with her on Twitter.