Bret McGowen behind the podium talking about serverless on Google Cloud
Bret onstage at Google Cloud Next talking about serverless

Serverless & Google Cloud

For 5 years I was on the serverless team at Google Cloud as a developer advocate. I gave 80+ public talks on 5 continents in dozens of countries and loved my time there. I spoke at events such as Google I/O, Google Cloud Next, and various GDG meetups, such as Google Developer Group New York City / Hudson Valley. Check out some of my other talks on Google Cloud topics.

Animated intro of Bret McGowen and Martin Omander for the Servleress Toolbox video series
My co-host Martin and I created the Serverless Toolbox video series

Serverless Toolbox

While at Google I co-created and co-hosted a series of videos called Serverless Toolbox. We explored real-world use cases for Cloud Functions, Cloud Run, App Engine, Firestore, and more.

Bringing serverless to Kubernetes and Knative (2018)

Use Google Cloud to build a chatbot for Google Assistant is from Node Summit 2017.

Kubernetes and Istio provide a great foundation for orchestrating, monitoring, and scaling your apps. They're open source and work great in your data center or in any major cloud. Meanwhile, the serverless development model has empowered devs to build software faster than ever by eliminating concerns like scaling, networking, load balancing, OS patching, etc.

Combine the power of Kubernetes with the ease of use of serverless to create new, powerful and flexible development experiences.

Slides available on my Speaker Deck page.

Use Google Cloud to build a chatbot for Google Assistant (2017)

Use Google Cloud to build a chatbot for Google Assistant is from Node Summit 2017.

In this video, I'll show you how to build a chatbot for Google Assistant using Google Cloud, DialogFlow (née API.AI) and Firebase to extend Assistant with your own application to interact with your users. Learn how to build a custom Action and see how the same tools can help you build a serverless chatbot for Slack, Facebook Messenger, Google Home and more using Google Cloud Platform.

Slides available on my Slideshare.

Video also available from Node Summit 2017 on Vimeo at Build a chatbot for Google Assistant, Google Home, and more - Bret McGowen.

Google Cloud Overview (2015)

Google Cloud Overview is from 2015 but gives a (hopefully) entertaining overview of the Google Cloud Platform.

2015 talk from DevFest DC by Bret McGowen walking through Google Cloud using a demo application called Cloud Spin. Covers compute, storage, databases and more.

Track Cloud Cost With Rackspace & Cloudability (2013)

I recorded this video on how to track cloud spend on Rackspace using Cloudability back in 2013.
Former Racker and Googler Bret McGowen discusses the importance of monitoring the costs of hosting your app in the Rackspace Cloud using the tool Cloudability. Video originally from 2013.

Online Payments Made Easy: Stripe + Rails (2013)

I recorded this video on how to integrate Stripe into your Ruby on Rails web app -- all the way back in 2013!

Racker developer Bret McGowen guides you on how to set up Stripe in your Ruby on Rails web application so that you can easily accept online payments. Follow along with the coding exercise as well. Video from 2013.

Other videos

Check out a playlist of Bret's talks and recorded videos on YouTube.

Slide Decks

Serverless Deep Dive on Google Cloud (2018)

I'll start posting some of my old presentations from Google and Rackspace here, starting with Serverless Deep Dive on Google Cloud (2018).
Summary: Presentation from Google New York (NYC) advocate Bret McGowen in 2018. Serverless on Google Cloud covers a lot: compute, Cloud Functions, Cloud Run, App Engine, containers, Kubernetes, Firebase and much more. We'll also cover storage, containers vs apps vs functions, ML and AI, and much more.

I'll slowly add more decks to my "Bret McGowen - Google NYC" Speaker Deck page as time goes on.

Other talks

  • Supercharging Firebase with Google Cloud Platform (Google I/O 2016)

    May 2016. Mountain View, California

    In Supercharging Firebase with Google Cloud Platform developer advocates Sandeep Dinesh and Bret McGowen use Firebase to build a real-time game that interacts with virtual machines, big data and machine learning APIs on GCP. The coolest part of the demo involves the audience in the room and on the livestream interacting with the game via Speech API, all yelling instructions at the same time to move a dot through a maze. The hallmark of Firebase — real-time data synchronization across connected devices in milliseconds — is on display here and fun to see.

  • Containing Container Chaos with Kubernetes (Workshop QCon NYC 2016)

    June 17, 2016. New York City, New York

    New York City QCon workshop page for Google/Kubernetes
    Google has been running everything in containers for the past 15 years, but how do we orchestrate and manage all those containers? We've built and released the open source Kubernetes (http://kubernetes.io), which is based on years of running containers internally at Google. Join us for an introduction to containers and Kubernetes, followed by a hands-on workshop building and deploying your own Kubernetes cluster with multiple front end, database and caching instances.

  • Build a chatbot for Google Assistant, Google Home and more (Node Summit 2017)

    July 26 - July 27, 2017. San Francisco, California

    Node Summit 2017 workshop video
    Google Assistant is the conversational user interface for Android, iPhone, and Google Home devices that helps you get things done in your world. Actions on Google let you extend Assistant with your own application to interact with your users. Come learn how to build a custom Action and see how the same tools can help you build a serverless chatbot for Slack, Facebook Messenger, Google Home and more using Google Cloud Platform.

  • Google Cloud Spin Demo (many, many times)

    2015 - Google Developers Group North Jersey (at Montclair University near NYC)

    Ray and Bret will walk through features of the Google Cloud Platform used in building the Google Cloud Spin demo shown at recent #GCPNext events. The demo uses an orchestrated set of smartphones to capture multi-angle views of the same event, upload them to the cloud and have them stitched together in real time to create a single 180-degree snapshot of that moment.

Android Apps

Bret McGowen's Google Android Apps (coming soon)

Twitter/X

I have an alternate Twitter/X account at @BretMcGowen but also feel free to message me on Twitter at @BretMcG.