We compared Google Cloud and AWS in detail before writing any code, and chose Google Cloud. These are the reasons, including the one place it costs us more.
A whole class starts at once
The hardest moment for a lab platform is nine o'clock on a Monday, when 50 or 500 students press Start in the same minute.
On Google Cloud, one request asks for up to a thousand machines at once. A whole class is requested in a couple of seconds, and Ubuntu machines are typically ready within a minute after that. The platform we compared it with limits how fast you can ask for machines, so the same thousand starts would take minutes just to request.
Boot time still matters, especially for Windows, which takes a few minutes. The queue is not what students wait on.
Locked down by policy, not by convention
On Google Cloud, an organisation policy can refuse a public internet address on any machine except the ones we name. Our only named machines are the console gateways. A lab machine cannot be given a public address by a mistake in our code, because Google refuses the request.
Class machines also have their outbound internet blocked by firewall. Students reach their desktop through our browser console, and nothing else reaches the machine.
A console with no VPN, and no agent on the machine
Students open their desktop in a browser tab. Our staff reach a machine for support through Google's Identity-Aware Proxy, which needs no VPN, no bastion server, and no software of ours inside the image. When a technician uses an AI agent to build an image, the agent's commands reach the machine the same way.
One image, every region
A saved image on Google Cloud serves every region in the project. When we open a region nearer to a group of students, the images are already there.
Where it costs us more
Google bills the Windows Server licence per vCPU. A Windows lab hour costs us roughly twice what it would elsewhere. That is why Windows labs are $0.75 an hour and Ubuntu labs are $0.50. Ubuntu costs about the same on any major cloud.
What it means for you
You do not need a Google account, and you do not see Google's console. You get a browser lab for each student and one bill from us.
Get started with your own class.