Beyond Docker: Deploying a Python Project to GCP with Wheel Files

To access machine hardware and GPU drivers directly, the author eschewed Docker in favor of building runnable Python wheel files and deploying them to GCP. The article details the process of building wheel files with Poetry, creating a GCP Artifact Registry, configuring Poetry to publish to the registry, and downloading and running the wheel file on a VM instance. Challenges like version control and dependency management are addressed. This offers a Docker-less deployment solution for Python projects, particularly useful when direct hardware access is required.