Creating a Virtual Machine Instance with Google Cloud
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You can create an instance on GCP in one of the three ways –
- Google Cloud Console,
- gcloud command-line tool
- Compute Engine API
In this blog, we will create a VM instance using Google Cloud Console. Before doing that, let’s understand different types of machines for creating instances along with their memory and CPU capacities that can help you decide your ideal configuration based on your business needs.
What are the Different Machine Types for Creating Virtual Machine Instances?
Steps to Create VM Instance on GCP
Click on ‘Navigation Menu’ and select ‘Compute Engine’ -> ‘VM instances’.
If you are creating the instance for the first time, you will be prompted to create a project. Each instance belongs to a Google Cloud Project, which can have one or more instances. Enter your project name (e.g., ‘My Project 73416’), select Billing Account, and click on the ‘Create’ button' Or, if you already have a project, select it and continue.
Your selected project name will appear in the top bar of the screen. Click on the ‘Create’ button of the ‘Compute Engine – VM Instances’ pop-up window, and the ‘Create an instance’ screen will appear.
Type an instance name as an identifiable name for your instance (e.g., Instance 1).
Next, select the ‘Region’ and ‘Zone’. Please note that these are permanent settings and hence, need careful consideration while selecting them.
Select the required machine type based on your requirement and the table mentioned above. A General Purpose VM can work for Windows Server instance, which we are planning to create now. On the other hand, higher workloads such as databases demand memory-optimized VMs.
Select the ‘Boot Disk’ by selecting the required operating system. As we are creating ‘Windows Server’, click the ‘Change’ button.
- From the ‘Boot Disk’ pop-up window, select the ‘Operating System’ as ‘Windows Server’ and ‘Version’ as ‘Windows Server 2019 Datacenter Core’ and click on the ‘Select’ button.
Select if you need API access and Firewall exceptions. These are optional choices. You can give access to your VM to a specific group, individual, or everyone in the organization. Application development primarily needs API access. The firewall settings will dictate whether the VM will be accessible via internet protocols HTTP and HTTPS.
Click on the ‘Create’ button. The VM creation and deployment process will take a couple of minutes.
