Compute Engine: Virtual Machines (VMs)

New A2 VM Family : Based on the NVIDIA A100 GPU, for your most demanding applications. Request access to our alpha here.

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Compute Engine

Computing infrastructure in predefined or custom machine sizes to accelerate your cloud transformation. Try it free ● Created with Sketch. General purpose (E2, N1, N2, N2D) machines provide a good balance of price and performance ● Created with Sketch. Compute optimized (C2) machines offer high-end vCPU performance for compute-intensive workloads ● Created with Sketch. Memory optimized (M2) machines offer the highest memory and are great for in-memory databases ● Created with Sketch. Accelerator optimized (A2) machines are based on the A100 GPU, for very demanding applications Forrester logo

Forrester names Google Cloud a Leader among Public Cloud Development and Infrastructure Platforms

Easy integration

Integrate Compute with other Google Cloud services such as AI/ML and data analytics.

Scale globally as needed

Make reservations to help ensure your applications have the capacity they need as they scale.

Get more value

Save money just for running Compute with sustained-use discounts, and achieve greater savings when you use committed-use discounts. Key features

Key features

Confidential computing

Confidential VMs are a breakthrough technology that allows you to encrypt your most sensitive data in the cloud while it’s being processed.

Live migration for VMs

Compute Engine virtual machines can live-migrate between host systems without rebooting, which keeps your applications running even when host systems require maintenance.

Sole-tenant nodes

Sole-tenant nodes are physical Compute Engine servers dedicated exclusively for your use. Sole-tenant nodes simplify deployment for bring-your-own-license (BYOL) applications. Sole-tenant nodes give you access to the same machine types and VM configuration options as regular compute instances. View all features An overview of Compute Engine video

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An overview of Compute Engine

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02:01 Twitter created a hybrid-cloud solution that merged separate compute and storage platforms.

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What's new

Sign up for Google Cloud newsletters to receive product updates, event information, special offers, and more. Blog post image

Blog post Picking the right licensing model for your VMs Read the blog A2 blog image

Blog post New Compute Engine A2 VMs—first NVIDIA Ampere A100 GPUs in the cloud Read the blog Choosing the right VM blog image

Blog post Choosing the right machine family and type Read the blog Compute engine blog image

Blog post 5 best practices for Compute Engine cost optimization Read the blog

Documentation

Quickstart

Quickstart using a Linux VM

Create an instance and connect to that instance using SSH. Learn more Google Cloud Basics

Confidential VMs and Compute Engine

Learn more about Confidential VMs in Compute Engine, including support for end-to-end encryption, compute-heavy workloads, and more security and privacy features. Learn more Google Cloud Basics

Boot disk images

Learn about the public images that you can use to create your VMs, or learn how to create and import your own custom images to Compute Engine. Learn more APIs & Libraries

Using the Compute Engine API through client libraries

Use client libraries to create and manage Compute Engine resources in Go, Python, Java, Node.js, and other languages. Learn more Tutorial

Create managed instance groups

Managed instance groups maintain high availability of your applications by proactively keeping your VM instances available. Learn more Google Cloud Basics

Virtual Private Cloud (VPC) network overview

A VPC network provides connectivity for your Compute Engine VM instances. Configure your VPC network and firewalls to handle network traffic for your applications. Learn more Google Cloud Basics

Identity and Access Management (IAM) overview

Use IAM roles and permissions to manage access and permissions to your Compute Engine resources. Learn more Google Cloud Basics

Compute Engine resources

Find Compute Engine pricing along with discounts, benchmarks, zonal resources, release notes and more. Learn more Google Cloud Basics

Explore what you can build on GCP

Find out how to migrate and modernize workloads on Google’s global, secure, and reliable infrastructure. Learn more

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View all product documentation

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Quickstarts Get a quick intro to using this product. How-to guides Learn to complete specific tasks with this product. Tutorials Browse walkthroughs of common uses and scenarios for this product. APIs & references View APIs, references, and other resources for this product. Release notes Read about the latest releases for Compute Engine Use cases

Use cases

Use case VM migration to Compute Engine Compute Engine provides tools to help you bring your existing applications to the cloud. You can have your applications running on Compute Engine within minutes while your data migrates transparently in the background. Bring your existing applications from your physical servers, VMware vSphere, Amazon EC2, or Azure VMs. Migrate existing applications diagram

Tutorial

Migrate for Compute Engine

Validate, run, and migrate your systems without rewriting your applications, modifying your images, or changing your management processes. Learn more Tutorial

SAP HANA on Compute Engine

Configure Compute Engine VMs and persistent disks, as well as the Linux operating system, to achieve the best performance for your SAP HANA system. Learn more Tutorial

SQL Server on Compute Engine

Set up Compute Engine VMs to run your SQL Server workloads. Learn more Use case Genomics data processing Process petabytes of genomic data in seconds with Compute Engine and our high performance computing solution. Our scalable and flexible infrastructure enables research to continue without disruptions. Competitive pricing and discounts help you stay within budget to convert ideas into discoveries, hypotheses into cures, and inspirations into products. Genomics data processing diagram

Tutorial

Genomics: Running a GATK best practices pipeline

Run a pipeline on Google Cloud using the GATK Best Practices provided by the Broad Institute. Learn more Tutorial

Deploy an auto-scaling HPC cluster with Slurm

Gain a solid understanding of the ease of provisioning and operating an autoscaling Slurm cluster. Learn more Tutorial

Genomics: Running a dsub pipeline

Run a dsub pipeline on Google Cloud that creates an index (BAI file) from a large binary file of DNA sequences (BAM file). Learn more Use case BYOL or use license-included images You can run your Windows-based applications either by bringing your own licenses and running them in Compute Engine sole-tenant nodes or using a license-included image. After you migrate to Google Cloud, optimize or modernize your license usage to achieve your business goals. Take advantage of the many benefits available to virtual machine instances such as reliable storage options, the speed of the Google network, and autoscaling. Sole tenant node host diagram

Tutorial

Microsoft licensing on Google Cloud

Learn how you can leverage your existing investment in Microsoft licensing and bring them to Google Cloud. Learn more Best practice

Microsoft SQL Server

Learn how to optimize your usage of Microsoft SQL Server on Google Cloud. Learn more Best practice

Active Directory on Google Cloud

Watch this video from Cloud Next ’19 to learn how to leverage Google Cloud to manage your cloud-based AD-dependent apps and servers. Learn more View all technical guides All features

All features

Predefined machine types	Compute Engine offers predefined virtual machine configurations for every need from small general purpose instances to large memory-optimized instances with up to 11.5 TB of RAM or fast compute-optimized instances with up to 60 vCPUs.
Custom machine types	Create a virtual machine with a custom machine type that best fits your workloads. By tailoring a custom machine type to your specific needs, you can realize significant savings.
Confidential VMs	Confidential VMs are a breakthrough technology that allows you to encrypt data in use—while it’s being processed. It is a simple, easy-to-use deployment that doesn't compromise on performance. You can collaborate with anyone, all while preserving the confidentiality of your data.
Preemptible VMs	Low-cost, short-term instances designed to run batch jobs and fault-tolerant workloads. Preemptible VMs provide significant savings of up to 80% while still getting the same performance and capabilities as regular VMs.
Live migration for VMs	Compute Engine virtual machines can live-migrate between host systems without rebooting, which keeps your applications running even when host systems require maintenance.
Persistent disks	Durable, high performance block storage for your VM instances. You can create persistent disks in HDD or SSD formats. You can also take snapshots and create new persistent disks from that snapshot. If a VM instance is terminated, its persistent disk retains data and can be attached to another instance.
Local SSD	Compute Engine offers always-encrypted local solid-state drive (SSD) block storage. Local SSDs are physically attached to the server that hosts the virtual machine instance for very high input/output operations per second (IOPS) and very low latency compared to persistent disks.
GPU accelerators	GPUs can be added to accelerate computationally intensive workloads like machine learning, simulation, and virtual workstation applications. Add or remove GPUs to a VM when your workload changes and pay for GPU resources only while you are using them. Our new A2 VM family is based on the NVIDIA Ampere A100 GPU. You can learn more about the A2 VM family by requesting access to our alpha program.
Global load balancing	Global load-balancing technology helps you distribute incoming requests across pools of instances across multiple regions, so you can achieve maximum performance, throughput, and availability at low cost.
Linux and Windows support	Run your choice of OS, including Debian, CentOS, CoreOS, SUSE, Ubuntu, Red Hat Enterprise Linux, FreeBSD, or Windows Server 2008 R2, 2012 R2, and 2016. You can also use a shared image from the Google Cloud community or bring your own.
Per-second billing	Google bills in second-level increments. You pay only for the compute time that you use.
Commitment savings	With committed-use discounts you can save up to 57% with no up-front costs or instance-type lock-in.
Sustained-use savings	Sustained-use discounts are automatic discounts for running Compute Engine resources for a significant portion of the billing month.
Container support	Run, manage, and orchestrate Docker containers on Compute Engine VMs with Google Kubernetes Engine.
Reservations	Create reservations for VM instances in a specific zone. Use reservations to ensure that your project has resources for future increases in demand. When you no longer need a reservation, delete the reservation to stop incurring charges for it.
Right-sizing recommendations	Compute Engine provides machine type recommendations to help you optimize the resource utilization of your virtual machine (VM) instances. Use these recommendations to resize your instance’s machine type to more efficiently use the instance’s resources.
OS patch management	With OS patch management, you can apply OS patches across a set of VMs, receive patch compliance data across your environments, and automate installation of OS patches across VMs - all from a centralized location.
Placement Policy	Use Placement Policy to specify the location of your underlying hardware instances. Spread Placement Policy provides higher reliability by placing instances on distinct hardware, reducing the impact of underlying hardware failures. Compact Placement Policy provides lower latency between nodes by placing instances close together within the same network infrastructure.

Pricing

Pricing for Compute Engine is based on per-second usage of the machine types, persistent disks, and other resources that you select for your virtual machines. You can try Compute Engine at no charge. View pricing details

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Compute Engine

Forrester names Google Cloud a Leader among Public Cloud Development and Infrastructure Platforms

Easy integration

Scale globally as needed

Get more value

Key features

Confidential computing

Live migration for VMs

Sole-tenant nodes

An overview of Compute Engine

Customers

Spotify uses Google Cloud to unlock infinite capacity and faster innovation

Story highlights

Industry

What's new

Documentation

Quickstart using a Linux VM

Confidential VMs and Compute Engine

Boot disk images

Using the Compute Engine API through client libraries

Create managed instance groups

Virtual Private Cloud (VPC) network overview

Identity and Access Management (IAM) overview

Compute Engine resources

Explore what you can build on GCP

Not seeing what you’re looking for?

Explore more docs

Use cases

Migrate for Compute Engine

SAP HANA on Compute Engine

SQL Server on Compute Engine

Genomics: Running a GATK best practices pipeline

Deploy an auto-scaling HPC cluster with Slurm

Genomics: Running a dsub pipeline

Microsoft licensing on Google Cloud

Microsoft SQL Server

Active Directory on Google Cloud

All features

Pricing

Take the next step

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Products and pricing

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Resources

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