2.1 Introduction to Compute Engine: Creating Your First VM

Hello, Cloud! Launching Your First VM on Google Compute Engine

Welcome to the exciting world of Google Cloud Platform (GCP)! Today, we’re going to dive into one of GCP’s core services: Compute Engine. Think of Compute Engine as your personal digital workshop where you can build and run virtual machines (VMs). A VM is basically a computer that lives in Google’s data centers, allowing you to do everything you could on your own physical machine, but with the power and flexibility of the cloud.

This post will guide you through the process of creating your very first VM instance on Compute Engine. Don’t worry if you’re a beginner, we’ll keep it simple and easy to follow. Even if you have some cloud experience, this will provide a solid foundation for more advanced configurations later.

Why Compute Engine?

Before we get started, let’s briefly touch on why Compute Engine is so useful:

• Scalability: Need more power? Easily resize your VM or create more instances.
• Flexibility: Choose from a wide range of operating systems (Linux, Windows, etc.) and machine types to match your workload.
• Cost-Effectiveness: Pay only for what you use. Shut down your VM when you don’t need it, and you won’t be charged.
• Global Reach: Deploy your VMs in Google’s data centers around the world to be closer to your users.

Let’s Get Started: Creating Your First VM

Here’s a step-by-step guide to launching your first VM instance on Compute Engine:

1. Access the Google Cloud Console:

• If you don’t already have a GCP account, you’ll need to sign up for one. You’ll get free credits to experiment!
• Go to the Google Cloud Console: console.cloud.google.com
• Select or create a project. Projects are how you organize your GCP resources.

2. Navigate to Compute Engine:

• In the left-hand navigation menu, find “Compute Engine” under the “Compute” section.
• Click on “Compute Engine” and then “VM instances.”

3. Create a New VM Instance:

• Click the “CREATE INSTANCE” button.

4. Configure Your VM Instance (The Fun Part!):

• Name: Give your VM a descriptive name (e.g., my-first-vm).

• Region and Zone: Choose a region and zone that is geographically closest to you or your users. Regions are broad geographical locations (e.g., us-central1), and zones are specific locations within a region (e.g., us-central1-a). For this tutorial, select a region and zone available in your free tier if you are using a free tier account.

• Machine Configuration: This is where you choose the “horsepower” of your VM.
  • Machine family: Select General-purpose. This is usually a good starting point.
  • Series: Select E2. This is a good balance of performance and cost.
  • Machine type: Select e2-micro. This is a small, cost-effective machine type, great for testing. Note that e2-micro is available within the free tier.
    • The machine type determines the number of virtual CPUs (vCPUs) and the amount of memory (RAM) allocated to your VM.
• Boot Disk: This is where you choose the operating system for your VM.
  • Click “Change” under “Boot disk.”
  • Select your operating system from the tabs (e.g., Debian, Ubuntu, Windows Server). For this example, let’s choose Ubuntu.
  • Choose a version of Ubuntu (e.g., Ubuntu 20.04 LTS). LTS versions are generally recommended for stability.
  • Size (GB): The default size (e.g., 10 GB) is usually sufficient for basic testing.
  • Leave the other boot disk settings as default for now.
  • Click “Select.”
• Firewall: Allow HTTP and HTTPS traffic to be able to access a webserver from this VM via public internet.
  • Check “Allow HTTP traffic“.
  • Check “Allow HTTPS traffic“.
• Optional Settings (For Later): For now, we’ll skip the advanced options. You can explore these later to customize networking, security, and more.

5. Create the VM Instance:

• Review your settings one last time.
• Click the “CREATE” button.

6. Accessing Your VM:

• It will take a few moments for your VM to be created. You’ll see its status change from “Creating” to “Running.”
• Once running, you’ll see a green checkmark next to its name.
• To connect to your VM using your browser, click the “SSH” button in the “Connect” column. This will open a terminal window in your browser.

Congratulations! You’ve created your first VM on Google Compute Engine!

What to Do Next?

Now that you have a running VM, you can start exploring:

• Install Software: Use the terminal window to install software (e.g., a web server like Apache or Nginx). For example, on Ubuntu, you might run sudo apt update followed by sudo apt install apache2.
• Configure Security: Learn about firewall rules and how to secure your VM.
• Explore Other Machine Types: Experiment with different machine types to find the best fit for your needs.
• Automate Deployment: Learn about using tools like Terraform to automate the creation and management of your VMs.
• Explore GCP Marketplace: Quickly deploy pre-configured stacks and applications on your VM.

Key Takeaways

• Compute Engine provides virtual machines in the cloud.
• Creating a VM is a straightforward process through the Google Cloud Console.
• You have control over the size, operating system, and location of your VMs.
• This is just the beginning! There’s a whole world of cloud computing to explore!

This is just a basic introduction to Compute Engine. As you become more comfortable, you can explore more advanced features like autoscaling, managed instance groups, and custom images. Happy cloud computing!