Cloud CDN integration in GCP - Mini Project: Build & Apply

Cloud CDN integration

📖 Scenario: You are setting up a website hosted on Google Cloud Platform (GCP). To improve the website's speed and reduce load on your server, you want to use Cloud CDN (Content Delivery Network) to cache content closer to users worldwide.

🎯 Goal: Build a simple Google Cloud configuration that creates a backend service with Cloud CDN enabled, linked to a URL map and HTTP proxy, ready to serve cached content globally.

📋 What You'll Learn

Create a backend service named my-backend-service with Cloud CDN enabled

Create a URL map named my-url-map that routes all requests to my-backend-service

Create a target HTTP proxy named my-http-proxy that uses my-url-map

Create a global forwarding rule named my-forwarding-rule that listens on port 80 and directs traffic to my-http-proxy

💡 Why This Matters

🌍 Real World

Many websites use Cloud CDN to speed up content delivery by caching content closer to users worldwide, reducing latency and server load.

💼 Career

Cloud engineers and DevOps professionals often configure CDN services to optimize web application performance and scalability.

1

Create the backend service

Create a backend service named my-backend-service with Cloud CDN disabled initially.

GCP

# Create a backend service named my-backend-service with CDN disabled
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Use the google_compute_backend_service resource with enable_cdn = false for now.

2

Enable Cloud CDN on the backend service

Modify the backend service my-backend-service to enable Cloud CDN by setting enable_cdn = true.

GCP

resource "google_compute_backend_service" "my_backend_service" {
  name                  = "my-backend-service"
  enable_cdn            = false
  protocol              = "HTTP"
  timeout_sec           = 30
  connection_draining {
    draining_timeout_sec = 0
  }
}

# Change enable_cdn to true below
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Set enable_cdn to true inside the backend service resource.

3

Create URL map and HTTP proxy

Create a URL map named my-url-map that routes all requests to my-backend-service, and create a target HTTP proxy named my-http-proxy that uses my-url-map.

GCP

resource "google_compute_backend_service" "my_backend_service" {
  name                  = "my-backend-service"
  enable_cdn            = true
  protocol              = "HTTP"
  timeout_sec           = 30
  connection_draining {
    draining_timeout_sec = 0
  }
}

# Create google_compute_url_map named my-url-map routing all to my-backend-service
# Create google_compute_target_http_proxy named my-http-proxy using my-url-map
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Use google_compute_url_map with default_service set to the backend service, and google_compute_target_http_proxy with url_map set to the URL map.

4

Create global forwarding rule

Create a global forwarding rule named my-forwarding-rule that listens on port 80 and directs traffic to the target HTTP proxy my-http-proxy.

GCP

resource "google_compute_backend_service" "my_backend_service" {
  name                  = "my-backend-service"
  enable_cdn            = true
  protocol              = "HTTP"
  timeout_sec           = 30
  connection_draining {
    draining_timeout_sec = 0
  }
}

resource "google_compute_url_map" "my_url_map" {
  name            = "my-url-map"
  default_service = google_compute_backend_service.my_backend_service.self_link
}

resource "google_compute_target_http_proxy" "my_http_proxy" {
  name    = "my-http-proxy"
  url_map = google_compute_url_map.my_url_map.self_link
}

# Create google_compute_global_forwarding_rule named my-forwarding-rule listening on port 80
# forwarding to my-http-proxy
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Use google_compute_global_forwarding_rule with port_range = "80" and target set to the HTTP proxy.