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09-google-compute-engine.md

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9. Google Compute Engine

GCP's IaaS offering allowing one to spin up virtual machines and networks of virtual machines. Google manages the hardware layer, we are fully responsible for software layer.

  • innovative pricing
    • sub-hour billing
      • paying by the minute with 10 minute minimum
      • discounted pricing for sustained usage
    • preemptible instances
      • up to 70% cheaper
      • short-lived - up to 24 hours before being terminated
  • robust networking features
  • instance metadata and startup scripts
  • wide range of machine types
    • can specify custom machine attributes
  • HTTP and network load balancing
  • Google Cloud Monitoring
    • create uptime checks
    • get notified when there are issues
    • creat dashboards from generated metrics
  • persistent disk snapshots
    • makes it easy to backup or migrate data
  • APIs for auto-scaling and group management
    • group management allows for pools of virtual machines (instance groups) based on a template
    • auto-scaling allows for machines to be automatically scaled within an instance group based on specified metrics

Compute Engine Resources

  • instances provide CPU and memory
  • standard, SSD, and local SSD persistent disks
    • standard and SSD are network attached
    • local SSD is directly attached storage used for intensive workloads
  • images for Linux, UNIX, and Windows Server
  • support for disk snapshots
  • networks with firewall rules
    • networks allow one to create many virtual machines that communicate with each other
    • firewall rules dictate traffic coming in or out of the network
  • forwarding rules for load balancing
    • balance traffic across the network

When we spin up a Compute Engine virtual machine instance we:

  • define a region and zone for the instance
  • define the physical specifications of the machine
  • attach persistent disks to the machine
  • attach a boot disk with an OS, bootloader, and file system

Compute Engine in developer console

Compute Engine

In the navigation:

  • VM Instances
    • list of instances for the current project
  • Instance groups
    • managing pools of VMs
  • Instance templates
    • templates for spinning up instance groups
  • Disks
    • persistent data attached to instances
    • disks can be created independently and then attached to instances
  • Snapshots
    • backed up data
  • Images
    • available OSs to configure VMs with
  • Metadata
    • project-wide metadata
    • each instance has its own metadata, but project-wide metadata can be configured here that all instances have access to
  • Health checks
    • used with load balancing

Networking in developer console

VPC Networks

Compute Engine Billing

  • instances are charged for while running (and can be switched off)
  • disks are charged for bt allocated amount (not amount in use)
  • networks are charged for on certain operations
    • ingress (inbound traffic) generally has no charge
    • egress (outbound traffic) it depends
      • same zone, generally no charge
      • between zones / regions charges vary depending on geographical location
  • pricing calculator
  • Compute Engine pricing is region-specific

CLI - gcloud compute

Cloud SDK includes gcloud compute for managing GCE resources, e.g.

# create a compute instance
$ gcloud compute instances create <instance_name> --zone <zone> --project <id>
#   [1]    [2]      [2]    [          3         ]
# 1 - gcloud SDK
# 2 - compute command
# 3 - command group / resource
# 4 - commands

# get all compute command groups / resources
$ gcloud compute -h

# get all operations that can be performed on a specific command group / resource
$ gcloud compute instances -h

Accessing Instances

  • access Linux and UNIX instances of SSH

    • access via Cloud SDK

      $ gcloud compute ssh <instance>

    • over standard SSH

    • from the developer console

  • access Windows Server instances over Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP)