Introduction to Compute Engines on GCP
Compute Engines are the virtual machines on Google Cloud Platform. These are computers that you can provision or configure to your liking, and only use when you need to. As usual, you only get billed for what you use.
Compute engines are versatile. You can configure them with any number of processors, RAM, and storage. You also get to choose your operating system. When setup, you can use them for whatever your heart desires. You can log into them via SSH, install your software, and run your services or experiments.
Let’s get started with configuring an instance on Google Cloud Platform. From the Menu, choose Compute Engine to get started. Then choose to create an instance. You will get the screen below.
You can give your instance a name that helps you differentiate it from others. The zone helps you locate it closest to your primary users in order to reduce latency. You can choose your machine type. You can deploy a container to the instance. You can choose a boot disk or operating system. If you will be running a web server, you can open up the ports.
If you are into writing scripts to automate firing up instances, you can view a script for this instance you just configured. You will need to copy out the script for future use.
Here is a closer look at a similar script.
When you are done creating your instances, you can view them on your console and connect to them using the SSH link. This will open up a browser window and you can proceed to get your work done.
You can execute commands on an instance without opening an SSH connection using gcloud.
Perhaps most importantly, you can copy files to your instances.
At this point, you should be ready to get to work with your new instance. Enjoy!
