Deploying workloads in GCP - Mini Project: Build & Apply

Deploying Workloads on Google Cloud Platform

📖 Scenario: You are working as a cloud engineer for a small company. Your task is to deploy a simple web application workload on Google Cloud Platform (GCP) using Compute Engine virtual machines.This project will guide you step-by-step to create the necessary resources and configurations to deploy your workload successfully.

🎯 Goal: By the end of this project, you will have created a Compute Engine instance with a startup script that deploys a simple web server. You will configure the instance to allow HTTP traffic and verify the deployment setup.

📋 What You'll Learn

Create a Compute Engine instance with a specific name and machine type

Add a startup script to install and start a web server

Configure the instance to allow HTTP traffic

Verify the instance configuration for deployment readiness

💡 Why This Matters

🌍 Real World

Deploying workloads on cloud virtual machines is a common task for running web applications, databases, and other services.

💼 Career

Cloud engineers and DevOps professionals regularly create and configure compute instances to deploy and manage workloads in production environments.

1

Create a Compute Engine instance resource

Create a variable called instance_config that is a dictionary with these exact keys and values: "name": "web-server-1", "machine_type": "e2-micro", and "zone": "us-central1-a".

GCP

# Create the instance_config dictionary with name, machine_type, and zone
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Use a Python dictionary with keys exactly as name, machine_type, and zone.

2

Add a startup script to install a web server

Add a key "startup_script" to the instance_config dictionary with the value set to the string "#!/bin/bash\nsudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install -y apache2 && sudo systemctl start apache2".

GCP

instance_config = {
    "name": "web-server-1",
    "machine_type": "e2-micro",
    "zone": "us-central1-a"
}
# Add the startup_script key with the installation commands
# Your code here

Need a hint?

The startup script runs commands to update packages, install Apache2, and start the service.

3

Configure the instance to allow HTTP traffic

Add a key "allow_http" to the instance_config dictionary and set its value to True.

GCP

instance_config = {
    "name": "web-server-1",
    "machine_type": "e2-micro",
    "zone": "us-central1-a",
    "startup_script": "#!/bin/bash\nsudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install -y apache2 && sudo systemctl start apache2"
}
# Add allow_http key set to True
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Setting allow_http to True enables HTTP traffic to the instance.

4

Complete the deployment configuration

Create a variable called deployment_config that is a dictionary with a single key "compute_instance" whose value is the instance_config dictionary.

GCP

instance_config = {
    "name": "web-server-1",
    "machine_type": "e2-micro",
    "zone": "us-central1-a",
    "startup_script": "#!/bin/bash\nsudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install -y apache2 && sudo systemctl start apache2",
    "allow_http": True
}
# Create deployment_config dictionary with compute_instance key
# Your code here

Need a hint?

This final dictionary groups the instance configuration under the key compute_instance.