Welcome to RtoProd.com!
Welcome to the first blog post on RtoProd.com! Our mission is to provide tips, tricks, and insights to help you transition your R code to production-grade infrastructure.
Before diving into the technical aspects of deploying R applications, the very first thing we need is an account on a production-grade infrastructure platform. In this post, we’ll guide you through creating a Google Cloud Platform (GCP) account. GCP offers a robust and scalable environment perfect for hosting R applications, pipelines, and APIs. By following this tutorial, you’ll set up your account and gain access to $300 in free credits.
In addition to the free credits, GCP offers a range of free-tier services that you can use indefinitely under specified limits. You can find a complete list of free-tier services here.
Why Choose Google Cloud?
Google Cloud Platform is an excellent choice for deploying R projects due to its scalability, compatibility with R tools, and a wide range of services. While other cloud providers like AWS and Azure are equally viable, we focus on GCP because it’s what we’re most comfortable with. Other cloud service providers are as recommended as GCP, and most of the services and procedures remain similar.
We recommend creating a new account for each project. First, to keep projects encapsulated in their own account, making it easier to manage and organize resources. Second, because Google offers $300 in credits for every new account, providing a great opportunity to experiment with their services at no cost.
Step-by-Step Guide to Creating a Google Cloud Account
This guide covers everything from signing up to completing the payment setup. Don’t worry—your payment method won’t be charged until your $300 free credits are either spent or expire in 90 days. Let’s get started!
Visit https://cloud.google.com/.
Click the “Start Free” button.
- Click “Create account”, then choose “For work or my business” (or another option that suits your needs).
- Click “Get a Gmail address”.
- Enter your First and Last names, and then click on “Next”.
- Fill in your birthdate and Gender, and click on “Next”.
- Click “Get a Gmail address instead”.
- Fill in your Username (we recommend a name related to the new project), and click “Next”.
- Fill in your Password, and click “Next”.
- Fill in your Phone number, and click “Next”. This step is safe; you won’t be charged anything to your phone number, and you can use your number for as many accounts as you need.
- Enter the verification code you receive via SMS, and click “Next”.
- Add a Recovery email (we recommend using your most used email), and click “Next”.
- Fill in your Phone number again, and click “Next”.
- If a screen pops up stating that your phone number is already in use for another account, click “Continue creating a new account”.
- Just click “Skip”.
- Click “Next”.
- Thoroughly read the terms and conditions, and click “I agree” (if you agree).
- Click “Not Now”.
- Fill in your business country, and click “Agree & continue” (if you agree with the terms).
- Click “Start free”.
- Fill in your payments profile. Here, we use the “Individual” profile type.
- Click “Start free”.
- Fill in your payment method details. Here, we’ve used a credit card.
- Add your credit card information. It won’t be charged until your free credits expire, at which point you can decide whether to continue paying or disable non-free-tier services.
- Click “Start free”.
- Click “Done”.
- That’s it! Your account is now ready to use, with free-tier services enabled, and you’ve got $300 in credits to use within the next 3 months.
Creating Your First Project (Optional)
While it’s perfectly fine to start with the default “My First Project” assigned by Google Cloud, creating a dedicated project for each of your R deployments helps you organize resources more effectively. It’s a simple process and a great habit to adopt.
- Click on “My First Project”.
- Click “NEW PROJECT”.
- Enter the new “Project name”, and then click “CREATE”.
- Wait a few moments for the new project to be created. Once the green checkmark appears, click “SELECT PROJECT” to start using your new project.
