Multi-region architecture patterns in GCP - Mini Project: Build & Apply

Build a Multi-Region Architecture on Google Cloud Platform

📖 Scenario: You work for a company that wants to make its web application highly available and fast for users in different parts of the world. To do this, you will create a simple multi-region architecture on Google Cloud Platform (GCP). This means your app will run in two different regions, so if one region has a problem, the other can keep serving users.

🎯 Goal: Build a basic multi-region setup on GCP using Compute Engine instances and a global load balancer. You will create VM instances in two regions, configure a health check, and set up a global forwarding rule to distribute traffic between regions.

📋 What You'll Learn

Create two Compute Engine VM instances in different regions

Create a health check to monitor VM instances

Create an instance group for each region

Set up a backend service with both instance groups

Create a global forwarding rule to distribute traffic

💡 Why This Matters

🌍 Real World

Multi-region architectures help companies keep their applications available and fast for users worldwide, even if one region has problems.

💼 Career

Cloud architects and engineers often design multi-region setups to improve reliability and performance of cloud applications.

1

Create two VM instances in different regions

Create two Compute Engine VM instances named vm-us-central1 in region us-central1 and vm-europe-west1 in region europe-west1. Use the machine type e2-micro and the image family debian-11 for both.

GCP

# Create VM instance vm-us-central1 in us-central1
# Create VM instance vm-europe-west1 in europe-west1
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Use gcloud compute instances create command with the specified names, zones, machine types, and image family.

2

Create unmanaged instance groups for each region

Create two unmanaged instance groups named group-us-central1 in zone us-central1-a and group-europe-west1 in zone europe-west1-b. Add the VM instances vm-us-central1 and vm-europe-west1 to their respective groups.

GCP

gcloud compute instances create vm-us-central1 --zone=us-central1-a --machine-type=e2-micro --image-family=debian-11 --image-project=debian-cloud
gcloud compute instances create vm-europe-west1 --zone=europe-west1-b --machine-type=e2-micro --image-family=debian-11 --image-project=debian-cloud
# Create unmanaged instance group group-us-central1 in us-central1-a
# Add vm-us-central1 to group-us-central1
# Create unmanaged instance group group-europe-west1 in europe-west1-b
# Add vm-europe-west1 to group-europe-west1
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Use gcloud compute instance-groups unmanaged create and gcloud compute instance-groups unmanaged add-instances commands for each region.

3

Create a health check and backend service with both instance groups

Create a TCP health check named tcp-health-check on port 80. Then create a backend service named multi-region-backend using the health check. Add both instance groups group-us-central1 and group-europe-west1 as backends to this service.

GCP

gcloud compute instances create vm-us-central1 --zone=us-central1-a --machine-type=e2-micro --image-family=debian-11 --image-project=debian-cloud
gcloud compute instances create vm-europe-west1 --zone=europe-west1-b --machine-type=e2-micro --image-family=debian-11 --image-project=debian-cloud
gcloud compute instance-groups unmanaged create group-us-central1 --zone=us-central1-a
gcloud compute instance-groups unmanaged add-instances group-us-central1 --instances=vm-us-central1 --zone=us-central1-a
gcloud compute instance-groups unmanaged create group-europe-west1 --zone=europe-west1-b
gcloud compute instance-groups unmanaged add-instances group-europe-west1 --instances=vm-europe-west1 --zone=europe-west1-b
# Create TCP health check tcp-health-check on port 80
# Create backend service multi-region-backend with tcp-health-check
# Add group-us-central1 and group-europe-west1 as backends
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Use gcloud compute health-checks create tcp for the health check and gcloud compute backend-services create with --global for the backend service. Add both instance groups as backends.

4

Create a global forwarding rule to distribute traffic

Create a global forwarding rule named multi-region-forwarding-rule that listens on port 80 and forwards traffic to the backend service multi-region-backend. Use the TCP protocol.

GCP

gcloud compute instances create vm-us-central1 --zone=us-central1-a --machine-type=e2-micro --image-family=debian-11 --image-project=debian-cloud
gcloud compute instances create vm-europe-west1 --zone=europe-west1-b --machine-type=e2-micro --image-family=debian-11 --image-project=debian-cloud
gcloud compute instance-groups unmanaged create group-us-central1 --zone=us-central1-a
gcloud compute instance-groups unmanaged add-instances group-us-central1 --instances=vm-us-central1 --zone=us-central1-a
gcloud compute instance-groups unmanaged create group-europe-west1 --zone=europe-west1-b
gcloud compute instance-groups unmanaged add-instances group-europe-west1 --instances=vm-europe-west1 --zone=europe-west1-b
gcloud compute health-checks create tcp tcp-health-check --port 80
gcloud compute backend-services create multi-region-backend --protocol TCP --health-checks tcp-health-check --global
gcloud compute backend-services add-backend multi-region-backend --instance-group group-us-central1 --instance-group-zone us-central1-a --global
gcloud compute backend-services add-backend multi-region-backend --instance-group group-europe-west1 --instance-group-zone europe-west1-b --global
# Create global forwarding rule multi-region-forwarding-rule on port 80
# Forward traffic to multi-region-backend using TCP
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Use gcloud compute forwarding-rules create with --global, specify port 80, backend service, and TCP protocol.