---
title: Google Cloud
description: "## What is Google Cloud Platform? Google Cloud Platform provides public cloud infrastructure and includes services for computing and hosting, storage and database, networking, big data, and machine learning ## Why Should You Use the Google Cloud Platform Connector? The…"
url: "https://lucidum.io/docs/google-cloud/"
updated: "2026-05-29"
category: Connectors / List of Connectors / G
---

# Google Cloud

## What is Google Cloud Platform?

Google Cloud Platform provides public cloud infrastructure and includes services for computing and hosting, storage and database, networking, big data, and machine learning

## Why Should You Use the Google Cloud Platform Connector?

The Google Cloud Platform connector provides visibility into the assets in your environment. You can use this visibility to:

- ensure assets are managed per your security policies
- derive relationships between assets, users, applications, and data

## How Does This Connector Work?

Meridian executes read-only requests to the Google Cloud Platform REST API and ingests only meta-data about Google Cloud Platform devices. Meridian does not retrieve any data stored on your assets.

## Configuring the Connector in Meridian

| Field | **Description** | **Example** |
| --- | --- | --- |
| ***Profile Name*** | Name of this profile for the connector | production servers |
| ***JSON Key File*** | Click this button to upload the JSON file for the service account | healthy-pager-321415-afaa28ca955d.json |

## Prerequisites

To use the Google Cloud Platform connector, you must first:

- Enable the Cloud APIs
- Create a service account for the Meridian connector
- Generate a JSON file for the service account

### Enabling Google Cloud APIs and Creating a Service Account

1. Go to the Google Cloud Console ([https://console.cloud.google.com/](https://console.cloud.google.com/)) and select the project that you want Meridian to ingest data from.
2. Navigate to APIs & Services.
3. Enable the following APIs.

   - Compute Engine API
   - Cloud Resource Manager API
   - Cloud Storage JSON API
   - Cloud SQL Admin API
   - Stackdriver Monitoring API
   - Identity and Access Management (IAM) API
   - Cloud Billing API
4. If an API is not already in the list of APIs, follow these steps: [https://cloud.google.com/endpoints/docs/openapi/enable-api#enabling_an_api](https://cloud.google.com/endpoints/docs/openapi/enable-api#enabling_an_api).
5. Click the API you want to enable.
6. Click Enable.

### **Creating a Service Account and Granting Permissions to that Service Account**

To create a service account, see [https://cloud.google.com/iam/docs/service-accounts-create#creating](https://cloud.google.com/iam/docs/service-accounts-create#creating). The Meridian connector uses this account.

1. In the "Grant this service account access to a project", give the service account the roles listed below:

   - Compute Viewer
   - Kubernetes Engine Viewer
   - Storage Object Viewer
   - Cloud SQL Viewer
   - Organization Policy Viewer
   - Security Reviewer
   - Project Viewer
   - Billing Account Viewer
2. Skip the steps about attaching users to the service account.
3. Click Done.

### Create the JSON Key File for the Service Account

1. For details on creating a JSON Key file to the new service account, see [https://cloud.google.com/iam/docs/keys-create-delete#creating](https://cloud.google.com/iam/docs/keys-create-delete#creating).
2. Save the file locally. You will need it to configure the Meridian connector.

## API Documentation

[https://cloud.google.com/apis?hl=en](https://cloud.google.com/apis?hl=en)

The Meridian connector uses the Compute APIs and the Storage APIs.