jhuangtw/xg2xg

★ 15,595Audience · developerComplexity · 1/5Setup · easy

Mindmap

mindmap
  root((xg2xg))
    What It Is
      Lookup table
      Ex-Googler reference
      Markdown document
    Table Categories
      Core infrastructure
      Storage systems
      Data pipelines
      Internal services
    Column Types
      Google internal name
      Google Cloud product
      Open-source alternatives
    Audience
      Ex-Googlers
      Infra engineers
      Paper readers

mindmap root((xg2xg)) What It Is Lookup table Ex-Googler reference Markdown document Table Categories Core infrastructure Storage systems Data pipelines Internal services Column Types Google internal name Google Cloud product Open-source alternatives Audience Ex-Googlers Infra engineers Paper readers

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Things people build with this

USE CASE 1

Look up what replaces a Google-internal tool like Borg, Chubby, or Flume after leaving the company to find the closest open-source or cloud equivalent.

USE CASE 2

Translate a Google-style architecture described in a paper or talk into tools you can actually use at a startup or in a self-hosted environment.

USE CASE 3

Use as a general infrastructure reference to discover the open-source projects that inspired or replaced major Google internal systems.

Getting it running

Difficulty · easy Time to first run · 5min

In plain English

xg2xg is a "handy lookup table" put together by ex-Googlers to help other ex-Googlers find equivalents in the outside world for the internal tools they used at Google. People who worked at Google for a long time often refer to systems by their internal names, Borg, Bigtable, Spanner, Chubby, Flume, Stubby, and when they leave, they no longer have access to those tools. This README maps each Google-internal name to its public Google Cloud equivalent (when there is one) and to open-source or third-party alternatives. The way it works is just by reading. The repository is essentially one long Markdown document organized into sections like Core Technology, Infrastructure, Storage, and Services. Each section is a table with three or four columns: Google internal name, Google external (Cloud) product, and open-source or real-world alternatives, sometimes with a SaaS column. If you remember Borg, the Infrastructure row points you at Kubernetes and at alternatives like Apache Mesos, Apache Aurora, and HashiCorp Nomad. Bigtable maps to Cloud Bigtable plus open-source databases such as Cassandra and HBase, and so on across many categories. You would use this when you have just left Google or are about to, and need to translate your mental model into tools that exist outside, or when you are reading Google papers or talks and want to know what comparable systems are available. It is also useful as a general reference for anyone curious about the open-source landscape behind Google-style infrastructure. The README explicitly asks contributors not to list confidential projects and welcomes pull requests with additions. The full README is longer than what was provided.

Copy-paste prompts

Prompt 1

I worked at Google and used Borg for container orchestration. What is the closest open-source equivalent I should use at a startup, and what are the trade-offs versus Kubernetes?

Prompt 2

Translate this Google-internal stack for a new project: Bigtable for storage, Flume for data pipelines, Stubby for RPCs, what open-source or cloud alternatives should I use?

Prompt 3

I'm reading a Google paper that mentions Chubby and Spanner. Using xg2xg as a reference, explain what each one does and what I would use instead in a self-hosted environment.

Prompt 4

What open-source alternatives exist for Google's internal monitoring and alerting systems, and how mature are they compared to the Google originals?

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