Google Cloud is a public cloud computing platform.
As with most cloud service providers, Google Cloud offers a pay-as-you-use pricing policy , including a number of free services.
This section is to help you get started with Google Cloud Compute Engine compute services, using Arm-based Tau T2A Virtual Machines. This is a general-purpose compute platform, essentially your own personal computer in the cloud.
Detailed instructions are available in the Google Cloud documentation .
Before you begin, create an account. For a personal account, click on Get started for free , and follow the on-screen instructions to register. You can use an existing Google account if you have one.
If using an organization’s account, you will likely need to consult with your internal administrator. See this guide for additional information.
Google Cloud offers a wide range of instance types, covering all performance (and pricing) points. For an overview of the Tau T2A instance types, see the General-purpose machine family overview.
Also note which regions these servers are available in.
The easiest way to launch your instance is via the
Google Cloud Console
. Activities can be separated by Project
. By default, when you first login, you will be in My First Project
. If you wish to rename this, navigate to IAM & Admin
> Settings
, and rename. You can also create new project(s) from the pull-down menu, or
directly
.
Select Compute Engine
from the Quick access
section, if shown. Else navigate to Compute Engine
> VM instances
. If it is your first time, you will be prompted to enable Compute Engine API
. Go to the
VM instances
area of the console.
Click the CREATE INSTANCE
button.
Give your instance a meaningful, but arbitrary, name. This is particularly useful when creating multiple instances. You can optionally add labels as additional identifiers.
Select an appropriate region
and zone
that support Arm-based servers.
To view the latest information on which available regions and zones support Arm-based servers, see the
Compute Engine documentation
. To filter for Arm-based machines, click on Select a machine type
, then select T2A
from the pull-down menu.
Select T2A
from the Series
pull-down menu. Then select an appropriate Machine type
configuration for your needs.
Click the CHANGE
button if you wish to change the virtual disk size, or the operating system or version, for example to Ubuntu 24.04 LTS
. Be sure to select Arm compatible image.
By default, you can access your instance via the browser. If you wish to use an SSH terminal, you must create and add an appropriate SSH key pair.
Other options, such as Confidential VM service
, can optionally be enabled. For now, leave as default (disabled). See the Google Cloud documentation for an explanation of these configurations.
When satisfied, click CREATE
. After a few moments the instance will be available and listed in your
console
.
You can interact with your instance via the browser (SSH-in-browser) or via an SSH terminal application.
Once running, the IP address will be displayed, and you are able to connect to the instance.
Select Open in browser window
from the SSH
pull-down to open an SSH shell directly.
Once connected, you are now ready to use your instance.
If an SSH key pair was set, connect to the instance with your preferred SSH client. For example, if using ubuntu
image:
ssh -i <private_key> ubuntu@<public_ip_address>
Replace <private_key>
with the private key on your local machine and <public_ip_address>
with the public IP of the target VM.
Terminal applications such as PuTTY , MobaXterm and similar can be used.
Once connected, you are now ready to use your instance.
Use the uname utility to verify that you are using an Arm-based server. For example:
uname -m
will identify the host machine as aarch64
.
Install the gcc
compiler. If you are using Ubuntu
, use the following commands. If not, refer to the
GNU compiler install guide
:
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt install -y gcc
Using a text editor of your choice, create a file named hello.c
with the contents below:
#include <stdio.h>
int main(){
printf("hello world\n");
return 0;
}
Build and run the application:
gcc hello.c -o hello
./hello
The output is shown below:
hello world
Cloud infrastructure deployment is typically done via Infrastructure as code (IaC) automation tools. There are Cloud Service Provider specific tools like Google Cloud Deployment Manager .
There are also Cloud Service Provider agnostic tools like Terraform .There is a deploying Arm VMs on (GCP) using Terraform learning path that should be reviewed next.