Today’s post is the last installation in our 2014 Google Cloud Platform Year in Review. Every day since the middle of December, we've featured a different Googler sharing their highlight from the past year in Cloud Platform.

As we end the year, let me observe that developers have it too easy today. Back in the day, we at Google had to build infrastructure with our own bare hands, after walking for hours through three feet of snow with no shoes, uphill, both ways! And once in the datacenter, sweat poured from our faces as we racked up endless stacks of 40-pound servers in sweltering exhaust heat so hot that the sweat drops evaporated before they hit the floor. Those were the days where doubling your capacity meant long days of backbreaking work.

And now you can just lean back, sip your latte, and use the fruits of our hard labor, blood, sweat and tears, and focus on just your idea without worrying about the engine behind your company. You have no idea what a server looks like, and think of adding ten new servers as a single command line to type.

And that’s exactly how it should be -- we’ve been through this pain so you don’t have to go through it. And we know where you want to go, and we’ll be there with you, evolving our platform as quickly as you evolve your ideas. I’m very excited about what Google Cloud Platform will bring in 2015...and I think you’ll be too once you see what we have in store. By the end of the year, whether you develop for an enterprise or for consumers, I hope you’ll agree that the rate of innovation in public clouds has never been higher, and that Google Cloud Platform is driving it. Happy new year!

- Posted by Urs Hölzle, Senior Vice President