What is Google Compute Engine (GCE)?

Google Compute Engine (GCE) is GCP's Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) offering for running virtual machines. It provides high-performance, scalable VMs on Google's infrastructure. Key features: Machine types: predefined (N2, C2, M2 series) and custom (specify exact vCPU and RAM). Preemptible/Spot VMs: 60–91% cheaper, but can be reclaimed with 30 seconds notice. Persistent Disk: network-attached SSD/HDD storage. Local SSD: physically attached, high-IOPS storage. Live migration: Google migrates VMs to different hardware during maintenance with no downtime — a unique GCP advantage. Managed Instance Groups: auto-scaling groups of identical VMs. Billed per second with a 1-minute minimum.