Section 1 - GCE - Compute Engine

Regions / Zones

Regions contain zones.

Machine Families

Different Machine Families for Different Workloads:

General Purpose (E2, N2, N2D, N1) : Best price-performance ratio

Web and application servers, Small-medium databases, Dev environments

Memory Optimized (M2, M1): Ultra high memory workloads

Large in-memory databases and In-memory analytics

Compute Optimized (C2): Compute intensive workloads

Gaming applications

Machine Images

  • Public images.

  • Customer images.

IP Addresses

External IP Addresses

  • External IP addresses are lost when a machine is stopped.

Static IP Addresses - Remember

  • Static IP can be switched to another VM instance in same project. Use External IP addresses in the menu.

  • Static IP remains attached even if you stop the instance. You have to manually detach it.

  • Remember : You are billed for an Static IP when you are NOT using it! (You pay more if you are not using it!).A

Bootstrapping - Startup Script

  • Available in the machine configuration.

Instance Templates

  • Define machine type, image, labels, Startup script and other properties.

  • Used to create VM instances and managed instance groups.

  • (Optional) Image family can be specified (example - debian-9): Latest non-deprecated version of the family is used.

Custom Image

  • Installing OS patches and software at launch of VM instances increases boot up time. Prefer customer images.

  • Image can be stored in Cloud Storage.

  • Deprecate old images (& specify replacement image).

Other

  • If you want dedicated hardware for your compliance, licensing, and management needs - use Sole-tenant nodes.

  • To manage 1,000's nodes use VM Manager.