Google Cloud Platform external IP point to an instance in Singapore but shown in US

Question

I purchased a GCP VM instance in asia-southeast1 and reserved an external IP in the same region for this.

The instance and IP information that is shown in GCP console seems to be okay but when I deploy my website into it, the response is really slow.

My static IP
VM instance

So I lookup my IP and the tool show my IP is from US

IP lookup result

I am not sure what wrong with my IP or instance, I am new in GCP please help. Thank you.

Answer 1

Thank guys for clarification about the IP, it is not related to my issue. I got confused with GeoIP at first.

After all, I found out that the slow response is caused by 2 things below:

• Database region: My Google Cloud Sql (mysql) region is in Australia because GCP Cloud Database has no server in SEA. I tried to change database region to asia-east (exactly is in Taiwan) and got doubly faster response.
  
  
• Connection method: GCP provide 2 ways to connect to its cloud sql: Database External IP (with IP whitelist config) and via Cloud SQL Proxy that both have network latency. I think GCP should support database communication inside a VPC. I am not sure why GCP does not support this way currently.
  

The response of my website is now better but much slower as compared with the same one I deployed into AWS. In AWS the communication between my App and database is done inside a VPC, no public IP exposed and no network latency. Moreover, AWS database have server in SEA that why AWS is much faster in my case
Response time: GCP vs AWS

Answer 2

The external IPs that are assigned to Google Cloud customer's projects are from an address block(s) that belongs to Google and is Geolocated there:

# The following results may also be obtained via:
# https://whois.arin.net/rest/nets;q=35.193.232.48?showDetails=true&showARIN=false&showNonArinTopLevelNet=false&ext=netref2
#
NetRange:       35.192.0.0 - 35.207.255.255
CIDR:           35.192.0.0/12
NetName:        GOOGLE-CLOUD
NetHandle:      NET-35-192-0-0-1
Parent:         NET35 (NET-35-0-0-0-0)
NetType:        Direct Allocation
OriginAS:
Organization:   Google LLC (GOOGL-2)
RegDate:        2017-03-21
Updated:        2018-01-24
Comment:        *** The IP addresses under this Org-ID are in use by Google Cloud customers ***
Comment:
Comment:        Direct all copyright and legal complaints to
Comment:        https://support.google.com/legal/go/report
Comment:
Comment:        Direct all spam and abuse complaints to
Comment:        https://support.google.com/code/go/gce_abuse_report
Comment:
Comment:        For fastest response, use the relevant forms above.
Comment:
Comment:        Complaints can also be sent to the GC Abuse desk
Comment:        (google-cloud-compliance@google.com)
Comment:        but may have longer turnaround times.
Ref:            https://whois.arin.net/rest/net/NET-35-192-0-0-1
OrgName:        Google LLC
OrgId:          GOOGL-2
Address:        1600 Amphitheatre Parkway
City:           Mountain View
StateProv:      CA
PostalCode:     94043
Country:        US
RegDate:        2006-09-29
Updated:        2017-12-21
(...)

That does not mean that your VM's address is responding from Mountain View, if your instance is in Asia. In your case, your instance in asia-southeast1 and is physically located in Singapore.

You can also choose the region for your static external IP, just go to VPC Network -> External IP addresses -> Reserve static address and you can choose the region where the external IP will be located. It will still be displayed as from the US by the whois databases, because it belongs to the Google bloc, but the entry point will be routed in Singapore, that should improve your latency.

Answer 3

If I search the whois data for external IP address of a Virtual Machines in GCP zone asia-southeast1 I can see that the address points to Google's headquarters in Mountain View, CA. The whois data has no indication of where in the world the actual hardware is located...

Many external Geo IP services depend on a SWIP database. Most of Google IP's are SWIP'ed to be Mountain View, CA. That means a VM living in a datacenter outside of the U.S. might show a linked U.S. IP address, as in your case. I suspect that most of Google's addresses will be originally US allocated.