M3.4 | GCP Global VPC Pros and Cons

Understanding GCP’s technical differences is really important, especially since GCP came onto the scene after AWS and Azure. They learned from the challenges users faced on those platforms while carving out their unique offerings.


Let's discuss the global VPC concept—it's remarkable technologically.

Imagine spinning up virtual machines in a single GCP VPC stretched across the globe. For example, in regions across Frankfurt, Singapore, and Los Angeles, and they all start talking to each other seamlessly without you configuring any underlay or overlay routing.

This is exactly the power of GCP global VPC. It provides global routing internally by default. This is done via a hidden routing running inside the global VPC.


But here's the thing: GCP realized that while this approach works great in many cases, it might not be the best fit for everyone. Especially if you're an enterprise or in a highly regulated industry like healthcare or finance.

Why? Because having all your eggs in one basket, so to speak, can create a huge problem if something goes wrong. If there's an issue in one location, it could potentially affect operations in others. And without the right security safeguards in place, sensitive data could be at risk.

Also, global VPC can potentially increase network latency due to the geographical distances between different regions. This can impact the performance of latency-sensitive applications.

A simple Google Gemini search lists some of the pros and cons of using GCP Global VPC.

So, what's the solution? If you read GCP documentation, it says



“For companies that deal with compliance initiatives, sensitive data, or highly regulated data that is bound by compliance standards such as HIPAA or PCI-DSS, further security measures often make sense. One method that can improve security and make it easier to prove compliance is to isolate each of these environments into its own VPC network.”


So, basically, my recommendation is to create regional VPCs. It will also help route the traffic back-and-forth from on-prem locations. You would have finer regional-level routing control because on-prem VPN connections and Google Cloud Interconnect circuits are regional anyways.