What does a GCP Virtual Machine instance run on?

A Google Cloud Platform (GCP) Virtual Machine instance operates on Google Compute Engine's infrastructure. Google Compute Engine is designed specifically to provide virtualized computing resources, which means you can create and manage virtual machines that run on Google's massive infrastructure. This allows users to deploy applications and services using the same hardware that powers Google’s own products.

By utilizing Google Compute Engine, you gain access to a range of customizable virtual machine configurations, enabling you to select the CPU, memory, and storage that best meet the needs of your applications. The underlying architecture of Google Compute Engine allows for high availability, scalability, and performance, making it an optimal choice for running VMs.

In contrast, the other options represent different services within GCP that cater to different use cases. Google Cloud Functions is a serverless execution environment for building and connecting cloud services, while Google App Engine is a platform for application development that abstracts away infrastructure management. Cloud Run, similarly, is a managed service that enables you to run containers without worrying about the underlying infrastructure. Each of these services serves specific functions that do not involve running traditional virtual machine instances directly.