Google Cloud Functions (GCF) is a serverless execution environment for building and connecting cloud services. In a serverless architecture, GCF allows developers to run backend code without managing servers. It automatically scales based on the load, only running when an event being watched is triggered.
The primary components of GCF are triggers and functions. Triggers initiate the function; they can be HTTP requests or Google Cloud events like changes in Cloud Storage buckets or Firestore updates. The function is the piece of code that executes in response to the trigger.
Developers write functions using supported languages (Node.js, Python, Go, Java), which are then deployed to the Google Cloud. Once deployed, GCF handles all the operational aspects such as infrastructure management, scaling, patching, and logging, allowing developers to focus solely on coding.
In terms of pricing, you pay only for the compute time you consume – there’s no charge when your code isn’t running. This makes GCF cost-effective for workloads that respond to events.
