Google Cloud APIs are programmatic interfaces to Google Cloud Platform services.They are a key part of Google Cloud Platform, allowing you to easily add thepower of everything from computing to networking to storage tomachine-learning-based data analysis to your applications.
About Cloud APIs
Cloud APIs are exposed as network API services to customers, such asCloud Pub/Sub API. Each Cloud API typically runs on one or moresubdomains of googleapis.com, such as pubsub.googleapis.com, and providesboth JSON HTTP and gRPC interfaces to clients over public internet andVirtual Private Cloud (VPC) networks. Clients can send HTTP and gRPCrequests to Cloud API endpoints directly or by using client libraries.
Cloud APIs are part of the Google EnterpriseAPIs category in the Google Cloud consoleAPI Library.
Accessing Cloud APIs
You can access Cloud APIs from server applications with ourclient libraries in many popular programming languages, from mobile apps via theFirebase SDKs,or by using third-party clients. You can also access Cloud APIs with theGoogle Cloud CLI tools orGoogle Cloud console.
If you are new to Cloud APIs, see Getting Startedon how to use Cloud APIs.
Supporting HTTP and gRPC
All Cloud APIs provide a simple JSON HTTP interface that you can call directlyor viaGoogle API Client Libraries.Most Cloud APIs also provide agRPC interface you can call viaGoogle Cloud Client Libraries,which provide better performance and usability. You can also use third-partyclients.
For more information about our client libraries, seeClient Libraries Explained.
TLS encryption
All Cloud APIs accept only secure requests using TLS encryption.
- If you are using one of our client libraries, in-transit encryption is handled for you by the library.
- If you are using your own gRPC client, you need to authenticate with Google (which requires TLS) following the instructions in the gRPC authentication guide.
- If you are creating your own HTTP client, see our HTTP guidelines.
You can find out more about how traffic to Google Cloud services is secured inour Encryption in Transit security guide.
Private Service Connect
Enterprise customers often want to access Cloud APIs privately for securityand compliance reasons. You can use Private Service Connect toset up and manage such access within your VPC networks.
For more information, seeConfiguring Private Service Connect.
Step-by-step examples
See the following step-by-step guides that use the client libraries for somepopular APIs:
- Cloud Billing Budget API with Node.js.
- Cloud Billing Budget API with Python.
- Cloud Logging with Node.js.
- Cloud Logging with Python.
- Cloud Logging with Go.
- Cloud Logging with Java.
- Speech-to-Text with Node.js.
- Speech-to-Text with Python.
- Speech-to-Text with Go.
- Speech-to-Text with Java.
API Design Guide
Regardless of the interface type, all Cloud APIs use resource-oriented designprinciples as described in our API Design Guide, whichensures Cloud APIs to have a simple and consistent developer experience.You can reference our API Design Guide to have a better understanding of CloudAPIs.
If you want to study the interface definition of Cloud APIs, you can visit theGoogle APIs repository on GitHub.
Capping your usage
Cloud APIs are shared among millions of developers and users. To ensure fairusage and minimize abuse risks, all Cloud APIs are enforcing rate limits andresource quotas on usage, commonly known as quotas. You can also use thesequotas to control your spending on Google Cloud products by reducing your ownquota limits. If you need more quotas than the default limits, you needto file quota increase requests.
For more information, see Capping API usage.
Monitoring your usage
Most Cloud APIs provide you with detailed information on your project's usageof that API, including traffic levels, error rates, and latencies. It helpsyou to quickly triage problems with applications that use Cloud APIs. You canview this information in the Google CloudAPI Dashboard in the Google Cloud console. Youcan also create custom dashboards and alerts in Cloud Monitoring.
For more information, see Monitoring API usage.
Google Enterprise APIs
Google Enterprise APIs are high-stability APIs, ready for enterprise use withsupport options available.
For more information, seeGoogle Enterprise APIs.
Try it for yourself
If you're new to Google Cloud, create an account to evaluate how our products perform in real-world scenarios. New customers also get $300 in free credits to run, test, and deploy workloads.
