GCP PlayCloud Labs Guided Lab: Creating and Managing Instance Groups in Compute Engine

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Guided Lab: Creating and Managing Instance Groups in Compute Engine

Jon-Bonso

Description

Instance groups in Google Cloud Compute Engine allow you to manage collections of VM instances together. They can be managed (based on an instance template, supporting autoscaling and load balancing) or unmanaged (manual grouping of existing VMs). Managed instance groups are especially useful for deploying scalable applications with consistent configurations.

In this guided lab, you will learn how to create a managed instance group using an instance template, scale the group, and observe how it simplifies VM management.

Prerequisites

To ensure the successful completion of this lab, we highly recommend taking these guided labs to gain the necessary understanding:

Objectives

In this lab, you will:

Create an instance template.
Use the template to create a Managed Instance Group (Stateless).
Scale the instance group.
Verify that the group maintains consistency across VMs.

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Lab Steps

Create an Instance Template

1. In the Google Cloud Console, navigate to Compute Engine → Instance templates.

2. Click Create Instance Template.

3. Name the template web-template.

4. Select e2-micro as the machine type.

5. Leave other configurations at their default values.

6. Click Create.

Create a Managed Instance Group

1. Navigate to Compute Engine → Instance groups.

2. Click Create Instance Group.

3. Choose New managed instance group (stateless).

4. Name the group web-group.

5. Choose the instance template web-template.

6. Under Autoscaling, set the Maximum number of instances to 3.

7. Leave other configurations at their default values.

8. Click Create.

Verify the Instance Group

1. After creation, open the instance group details for verification.

2. Navigate to the VM Instances.

3. You should see one VM instance automatically created from the template.

Scale the Instance Group

1. In the instance group details, click Edit.

2. Under Group size & autoscaling, increase the Minimum number of instances to 2.

3. Save changes.

4. Once updated, observe that a new VM instance is automatically created based on the template.

Test Consistency

1. Verify that all instances have the same configuration (same OS, firewall rules, etc.).

2. Go back to the web-group, then try to delete an instance.

3. Go back to the VM Instances and observe if one instance is deleted, the group will automatically recreate it to maintain the desired size.

Congratulations! You have successfully created and managed a Managed Instance Group (Stateless). You now understand how to use instance templates to ensure configuration consistency, scale groups seamlessly, and simplify VM management in Google Cloud.