Google is opening a new front in the competition over the public cloud with the introduction of a mobile monitoring app to complement its infrastructure-as-a-service platform. Google is playing catch-up in this area with Amazon, however, which introduced a mobile companion to its management console more than two years ago.

The Google dashboard provides the ability to browse the different components in a deployment, including everything from regular compute instances to managed NoSQL databases, and check configuration details such as geographic distribution.

It shares that functionality with the new Cloud Console from Google, which comes with the same pitch of allowing administrators to stay on top of their cloud deployments even when outside the office (or outside the data center, in this case.) The application offers a selection of monitoring graphs to display on the home page as well as an optimal billing estimate and a service status feed.

Another common feature of the two rivals’ applications is built-in alerting. Google’s client provides that functionality through integration with the recently introduced monitoring technology born from its acquisition of Stackdriver Inc. in May of last year. An administrator can set up notifications for specific events that require immediate attention, such as when a particularly important instance exceeds usage limitations for too long.

Such issues can then be addressed directly from within the client through a narrow set of controls that allow for quick modifications, again much like Amazon’s app. That provides the ability to start or stop an instance, quickly update a component to a new version and perform other small but essential operations that often can’t wait until the administrator returns to the workplace.

Unsurprisingly, Cloud Console is only available for Android on launch, but Google is already working on an iOS port to match Amazon’s cross-platform support. With both of its rivals now offering mobile monitoring clients, it’s only a matter of time until Microsoft Corp. – the last of the cloud’s big three – follows suit. That’s good news for users.