Google Cloud Documentation

What it is

Google Cloud Documentation is the official reference for Google Cloud products. It moved to docs.cloud.google.com, and old cloud.google.com/docs links redirect there. The home page groups products by technology area (compute, storage, databases, networking, security, AI and machine learning), links to SDK and language guides, covers cross-product tools for resource management and infrastructure as code, and leads to the Cloud Architecture Center and a comparison of Google Cloud services with AWS and Azure.

Why read the docs and not only a course

Google Cloud renames and restructures products regularly: Cloud Functions became Cloud Run functions, load balancer names changed, and Deployment Manager reached end of support in March 2026 in favour of Infrastructure Manager and Terraform. Courses lag behind these changes; the documentation does not. It is also where the exact behaviour lives, such as how IAM policies are inherited or which regions a free-tier limit applies to.

Where to start

For a cloud engineering path, these sections pay off first:

• Resource Manager and IAM: the resource hierarchy, roles, allow policies and service accounts.
• Compute Engine and Cloud Run for virtual machines and managed containers.
• Cloud Storage and Cloud SQL for files and relational data.
• VPC, Cloud NAT, firewall rules and Cloud Load Balancing for networking. Remember that a Google Cloud VPC is global while its subnets are regional.
• Cloud Monitoring, Cloud Logging and Cloud Billing for operations and cost.
• The Terraform on Google Cloud pages for infrastructure as code.

How to use it well

Install the Google Cloud CLI and follow the gcloud tab on each page, so every step you take is a command you can save and repeat. Read the quotas and pricing pages before designing around a product. When a lab or course shows a screen you cannot find, search the docs for the current product name.

Free or paid

The documentation is free. Following quickstarts creates billable resources unless they fall within the Free Trial credit or the Free Tier limits, so set a budget and delete your project when you finish.

Common questions

Is it suitable for beginners? The quickstarts are. The reference pages are dense, so pair them with the free learning paths on Google Skills when a topic is new.

Does it help with the Associate Cloud Engineer exam? Yes. The exam was updated for recent product renaming, and the docs are the most reliable source for current names and behaviour.