Legacy inventory database
Cloud / Knowledge library
Google Cloud VPN
Connects peer networks to Google Cloud VPCs through managed IPsec VPN tunnels
Why learn Google Cloud VPN?
Teams use Google Cloud VPN to adopt site-to-site cloud VPN without building the complete underlying platform themselves.
The problem it solves
Connects private networks to cloud virtual networks through encrypted tunnels
Where it came from
Google Cloud VPN is Google Cloud's offering for site-to-site cloud VPN. Its closest catalog counterparts are Azure VPN Gateway and AWS Site-to-Site VPN; they address the same broad need but are not feature-for-feature identical.
Build your understanding
Work through these exercises in order. Try the task before opening a reference.
- Explain the main responsibility of Google Cloud VPN.
- Choose a workload that fits Google Cloud VPN.
- Identify one operational tradeoff of Google Cloud VPN.
- Compare Google Cloud VPN with Azure VPN Gateway.
- Compare Google Cloud VPN with AWS Site-to-Site VPN.
Documentation and sources
- Google Cloud products at a glance (docs.cloud.google.com)
Connect the ideas
Alternatives
Real World Example
Secure Hybrid Connectivity for Legacy Inventory Systems
Retail organizations maintaining legacy on-premises inventory databases that require real-time synchronization with cloud-native analytics platforms.
The business problem
The organization faces data silos and security risks when attempting to expose private on-premises database endpoints over the public internet for cloud integration.
How this topic solves it
Cloud VPN establishes a secure, encrypted IPsec tunnel between the on-premises peer network and the Google Cloud VPC, allowing private communication without exposing services to the public internet.
- Define a Cloud Router in the target VPC to manage dynamic BGP routing.
- Create a VPN Gateway resource within the Google Cloud console.
- Configure the peer VPN gateway on-premises with matching encryption and authentication settings.
- Establish the IPsec tunnel between the Cloud VPN gateway and the peer gateway.
- Verify route propagation via BGP to ensure traffic flows securely between the VPC and the local network.
Shows the path of data from the on-premises network through the encrypted tunnel into the Google Cloud VPC.
Customer-managed hardware
Google-managed IPsec endpoint
Analytics platform
- On-Premises Network → Local traffic → Peer VPN Gateway
- Peer VPN Gateway → Encrypted IPsec Tunnel → Cloud VPN Gateway
- Cloud VPN Gateway → Internal VPC routing → Google Cloud VPC
Expected business outcome
A secure, private communication channel that enables seamless data synchronization between legacy on-premises systems and cloud analytics services.
Limitations and checks
Cloud VPN tunnels are subject to bandwidth limitations per tunnel; verify throughput requirements by monitoring traffic metrics in the Network Intelligence Center.