This is the corresponding repository to the Serverless Migration Station video series whose goal is to help users on a Google Cloud serverless compute platform modernize to other Cloud or serverless products. Modernization steps generally feature a video, codelab (self-paced, hands-on tutorial), and code samples. The content initially focuses on App Engine and Google's earliest Cloud users. Read more about the codelabs in this announcement as well as this one introducing the video series. This repo is for Python developers; there is another repo for Java developers.
Google App Engine (Standard) has undergone significant changes between the legacy and next generation platforms. To address this, we've created a set of resources showing developers how to perform individual migrations that can be applied to modernize their apps for the latest runtimes, meaning to Python 3 even though Google expressed long-term support for legacy runtimes like Python 2. The content falls into one of these topics:
Each codelab begins with a sample app in a "START" repo folder then walks developers through that migration, resulting in code in a "FINISH" repo. If you make mistakes along the way, you can always go back to START or compare your code with what's in the corresponding FINISH folder. The baseline apps are in Python 2, and since we also want to help you port to Python 3, some codelabs contain additional steps to do so.
NOTEs:
- These migrations are typically aimed at our earliest users, e.g., Python 2
- Python 3.x App Engine users: You're already on the next-gen platform, so you would focus on migrating away from the legacy bundled services
- Python 2.5 App Engine users: to revive apps from the original 2.5 runtime, deprecated in 2013 and shutdown in 2017, you must migrate from
db
tondb
and get those apps running on Python 2.7 before attempting these migrations.
App Engine, Cloud Functions, and Cloud Run are not free services. While you may not have enabled billing in App Engine's early days, all applications now require an active billing account backed by a financial instrument (usually a credit card). Don't worry, App Engine (and other GCP products) still have an "Always Free" tier and as long as you stay within those limits, you won't incur any charges. Also check the App Engine pricing and quotas pages for more information.
Furthermore, deploying to GCP serverless platforms incur minor build and storage costs. Cloud Build has its own free quota as does Cloud Storage. For greater transparency, Cloud Build builds your application image which is than sent to the Cloud Container Registry, or Artifact Registry, its successor; storage of that image uses up some of that (Cloud Storage) quota as does network egress when transferring that image to the service you're deploying to. However you may live in region that does not have such a free tier, so be aware of your storage usage to minimize potential costs. (You may look at what storage you're using and how much, including deleting build artifacts via your Cloud Storage browser.)
App Engine initially launched in 2008 (video), providing a suite of bundled services making it convenient for developers to access a database (Datastore), caching (Memcache), independent task execution (Task Queue), large "blob" storage (Blobstore) to allow for end-user file uploads or to serve large media files, and other companion services. However, apps leveraging those services can only run their apps on App Engine.
To increase app portability, its 2nd-generation service launched in 2018, initially removing those legacy bundled services. The main reason to move to the 2nd generation service is that it allows developers to upgrade to the latest language runtimes, such as moving from Python 2 to 3 or Java 8 to 17. Unfortunately, it was mutually exclusive to do so, meaning while you could upgrade language releases, you lost access to those bundled services, making it a showstopper for many users.
However, due to their popularity and to help users upgrade, the App Engine team restored access to many (but not all) of those services in Fall 2021. For more on this, see the Legacy services section below. As Google is continually striving to have the most open cloud on the market, and while many of those services are now available again, apps can still be more portable if they migrated away from the legacy services to similar Cloud or 3rd-party offerings. Another issue with the bundled services is that they're only available in 2nd generation runtimes that have a 1st generation service (Python, Java, Go, PHP), excluding 2nd generation-only runtimes like Ruby and Node.js.
Once apps have moved away from App Engine bundled services to similar Cloud or 3rd-party services. apps are portable enough to:
Progression (what order to do things) "START" and "FINISH" repo foldersNOTEs:
- App Engine (Flexible) is a next-gen service but is not within the scope of these tutorials. Curious developers can compare App Engine Standard vs. Flexible to find out more.
- Many use cases for Flexible or a desire for containerization can be handled by Cloud Run.
- Small apps or large monolithic apps broken up into multiple, independent microservices can consider migrating to Cloud Functions.
All codelabs begin with code in a START repo folder and end with code in a FINISH folder, implementing a single migration. Upon completion, users should confirm their code (for the most part) matches what's in the FINISH folder. The baseline migration sample app (Module 0; link below) is a barebones Python 2.7 App Engine app that uses the webapp2
web framework plus the ndb
Datastore library.
webapp2
web framework to Flask, FINISHing at code matching the Module 1 repo.ndb
to Cloud NDB, ending with code matching the (Module 2) FINISH repo folder. There's also has a bonus migration to Python 3, resulting in another FINISH repo folder, this one deployed on the next-generation platform.Beyond Module 2, with some exceptions, there is no specific order of what migrations modules to tackle next. It depends on your needs (and your applications'). However, there are related migrations where one or more modules must be completed beforehand. This table attempts to put an order on module subsets.
Topic Module ordering Description Baseline 0 ⇒ 1 Not a migration but a description of the baseline application (review this material before doing any migrations) Web framework 1 ⇒ everything else Current App Engine runtimes do not come with a web framework, so this must be the first migration performed. All migrations below can be performed after this one. Bundled services 17 and 22 These modules are for those who want to continue using Python bundled services from Python 3 App Engine. Datastore 2 [⇒ 3 [⇒ 6]] Moving off App Enginendb
makes your apps more portable, so the Module 2 Cloud NDB migration is recommended. Module 3: Migrating to Cloud Datastore (Firestore in Datastore mode) is optional and only recommended if you have other code using Cloud Datastore. Module 6: Migrating to Cloud Firestore (Native mode) is generally not recommended unless you must have the Firebase features it has, and those features will eventually be integrated into Cloud Datastore. (Push) Task Queues [7 ⇒] 8 [⇒ 9] Moving off App Engine taskqueue
makes your apps more portable, so the Module 8 Cloud Tasks migration is recommended for those using push tasks. Those unfamiliar with push tasks should do Module 7 first to add push tasks to the sample app. Module 9: Migrating to Cloud Datastore (Firestore in Datastore mode), Cloud Tasks (v2), and Python 3 is optional and only recommended if you have other code using Cloud Datastore and considering upgrading to Python 3. (Pull) Task Queues [18 ⇒] 19 Moving off App Engine taskqueue
makes your apps more portable, so the Module 19 Cloud Pub/Sub migration is recommended for those using pull tasks. The app is also ported to Python 3. Those unfamiliar with pull tasks should do Module 18 first to add pull tasks to the sample app. Memcache [12 ⇒] 13 Moving off App Engine memcache
makes your apps more portable, so the Module 13 Cloud Memorystore (for Redis) migration is recommended for those using memcache
. Those unfamiliar with memcache
should do Module 12 first to add its usage to the sample app. Cloud Functions 11 Cloud Functions does not support Python 2, so after the Module 1 migration, you need to upgrade your app to Python 3 before attempting this migration, recommended if you have a very small App Engine app, or it has only one function/feature. Cloud Run 4 or 5 Module 4 covers migrating to Cloud Run with Docker. Those unfamiliar with containers or do not wish to create/maintain a Dockerfile
should do Module 5. Those doing Module 4 will get additional information about Cloud Run in Module 5 not covered in Module 4. Blobstore [15 ⇒] 16 Moving off App Engine blobstore
makes your apps more portable, so the Module 16 Cloud Storage migration is recommended for those using blobstore
. Those unfamiliar with blobstore
should do Module 15 first to add its usage to the sample app. Users [20 ⇒] 21 Moving off App Engine users
makes your apps more portable, so the Module 21 Cloud Identity Platform migration is recommended for those using users
. Those unfamiliar with users
should do Module 20 first to add its usage to the sample app. General migration 6 ⇒ 10 ⇒ 14 This series is more generic and not targeting a specific feature migration, but rather if you need to migrate your App Engine apps from one running project to another. It starts with Module 6 if you need to migrate your code, say from Datastore to Firestore. Module 10 is if you need to migrate your data from one project to another, and finally, Module 14 is after you're done migrating your app, your data, or both, and need to migrate a running service on one GCP project to another.
The table below summarizes migration module resources currently available along with a more detailed table of contents below. Be sure to check back for updates as more resources are planned.
Module Topic Video Codelab START here FINISH here 0 Baseline app link N/A (no tutorial; just review the code) N/A Module 0 code (2.x) 1 Migrate to Flask link link Module 0 code (2.x) Module 1 code (2.x) (and code (3.x)) 2 Migrate to Cloud NDB link link Module 1 code (2.x) Module 2 code (2.x) & code (3.x) 3 Migrate to Cloud Datastore link link Module 2 code (2.x) & code (3.x) Module 3 code (2.x) & code (3.x) 4 Migrate to Cloud Run with Docker link link Module 2 code (2.x) & Module 3 code (3.x) Module 4 code (2.x) & code (3.x) 5 Migrate to Cloud Run with Buildpacks link link Module 2 code (3.x) Module 5 code (3.x) 6 Migrate to Cloud Firestore N/A N/A Module 3 code (3.x) no work required; Datastore upgrade automatic 7 Add App Enginetaskqueue
push tasks link link Module 1 code (2.x) Module 7 code (2.x) & code (3.x) 8 Migrate to Cloud Tasks link link Module 7 code (2.x) Module 8 code (2.x) 9 Migrate to Python 3, Cloud Datastore & Cloud Tasks v2 TBD link Module 8 code (2.x) Module 9 code 10 Migrate Datastore/Firestore data to another project TBD N/A N/A TBD 11 Migrate to Cloud Functions link link Module 2 code (3.x) Module 11 code (3.x) 12 Add App Engine memcache
link link Module 1 code (2.x) Module 12 code (2.x) & code (3.x) 13 Migrate to Cloud Memorystore link link Module 12 code (2.x) & code (3.x) Module 13 code (2.x) & code (3.x) 14 Migrate service between projects TBD TBD TBD TBD 15 Add App Engine blobstore
link link Module 0 code (2.x) Module 15 code (2.x) 16 Migrate to Cloud Storage link link Module 15 code (2.x) Module 16 code (2.x & 3.x) 17 Migrate to Python 3 bundled services (Part 1) link link Module 1 code (2.x) Module 1 code (3.x) 18 Add App Engine taskqueue
pull tasks link link Module 1 code (2.x) Module 18 code (2.x) 19 Migrate to Cloud Pub/Sub link link Module 18 code (2.x) Module 19 code (2.x & 3.x) 20 Add App Engine users
link link Module 1 code (2.x) Module 20 code (2.x) 21 Migrate to Cloud Identity Platform link link Module 20 code (2.x) Module 21 code (2.x) & code (3.x) 22 Migrate to Python 3 bundled services (Part 2) link N/A Module 22 code (2.x & 3.x) (⇐ same folder)
If there is a logical codelab to do immediately after completing one, they will be designated as NEXT. Other recommended codelabs will be listed as RECOMMENDED, and the more optional ones will be labeled as OTHERS (and usually in some kind of priority order).
Migrations from legacy App Engine APIs/bundled servicesModule 1 codelab: Migrate from webapp2
to Flask
webapp2
does not do routing thus unsupported by App Engine (even though a 3.x port exists)Module 2 codelab: Migrate from App Engine ndb
to Cloud NDB
Module 7 codelab: Add App Engine Task Queues push tasks to existing sample app
Module 8 codelab: Migrate from App Engine Task Queues push tasks to Cloud Tasks v1
Module 9 codelab: Migrate a Python 2 Cloud NDB & Cloud Tasks (v1) app to a Python 3 Cloud Datastore & Cloud Tasks (v2) app
Module 18 codelab: Add App Engine Task Queues pull tasks to existing sample app
Module 19 codelab: Migrate from App Engine Task Queues pull tasks to Cloud Pub/Sub
users
(and migrate to Cloud Identity Platform in Module 21)Module 12 codelab: Add App Engine Memcache to existing sample app
Module 13 codelab: Migrate from App Engine Memcache to Cloud Memorystore (for Redis) v1
users
(and migrate to Cloud Identity Platform in Module 21)Module 15 codelab: Add App Engine Blobstore to existing sample app
Module 16 codelab: Migrate from App Engine Blobstore to Cloud Storage (for Redis) v1
Module 20 codelab: Add App Engine Users to existing sample app
Module 21 codelab: Migrate from App Engine Users to Cloud Identity Platform/Firebase Auth
Module 3 codelab: Migrate from Cloud NDB to Cloud Datastore
Module 4 codelab: Migrate from App Engine to Cloud Run with Docker
Module 5 codelab: Migrate from App Engine to Cloud Run with Cloud Buildpacks
Dockerfile
sModule 11 codelab: Migrate from App Engine to Cloud Functions
memcache
(and migrate to Cloud Memorystore in Module 13)blobstore
(and migrate to Cloud Storage in Module 16)If your original app users does not have a user interface, i.e., mobile backends, etc., but still uses webapp2
for routing, some migration must still be completed. Your options:
ndb
to Cloud NDB (similar to Module 2)taskqueue
to Cloud Tasks (similar to Module 8)Many legacy App Engine first generation platform (Python 2, Java 8, PHP 5, and Go 1.11 & older) services are available (as of Sep 2021 for second generation runtimes (Python 3, Java 11/17, PHP 7/8, and Go 1.12 & newer) in a public preview. There are no videos or codelabs yet, however the Module 1 Flask migration using App Engine ndb
Python 2 sample is available in Python 3 if you have access. Similarly, Python 3 editions are also available for Modules 7 and 12 which add usage of App Engine taskqueue
and memcache
, respectively. Also see the documentation on accessing bundled services from Python 3.
Python App Engine developers hang out in various online communities, including these:
#app-engine
, #python
, and other channels); visit this link to joinApp Engine Migration
ndb
to Cloud NDB (Module 2)taskqueue
to Cloud Tasks (Modules 7-9)db
to ndb
("Module -1"; only for reviving "dead" Python 2.5 apps for 2.7)Python App Engine
Google Cloud Platform (GCP)
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