CheatSheetsHero

Catalog / Google Cloud Platform (GCP) DevOps Cheatsheet

Google Cloud Platform (GCP) DevOps Cheatsheet

A comprehensive cheat sheet for DevOps engineers working with Google Cloud Platform (GCP). This guide provides a quick reference to essential GCP services, commands, and best practices for implementing DevOps principles in the cloud.

Core Services & Concepts

Compute Engine

Description:

Virtual machines in the cloud. Provides customizable instances with various OS options.

Key Features:

Scalable, Customizable, Global infrastructure.

Use Cases:

Web hosting, application servers, batch processing.

gcloud command to create instance:

 
gcloud compute instances create [INSTANCE_NAME] --zone=[ZONE]

Kubernetes Engine (GKE)

Description:

Managed Kubernetes service for container orchestration.

Key Features:

Automated deployment, scaling, and management of containerized applications.

Use Cases:

Microservices architecture, containerized workloads.

gcloud command to create cluster:

 
gcloud container clusters create [CLUSTER_NAME] --zone=[ZONE]

Cloud Storage

Description:

Scalable and durable object storage.

Key Features:

Object versioning, lifecycle management, multiple storage classes (Standard, Nearline, Coldline, Archive).

Use Cases:

Storing backups, media files, and data archives.

gsutil command to create bucket:

 
gsutil mb -l [LOCATION] gs://[BUCKET_NAME]

Infrastructure as Code (IaC)

Cloud Deployment Manager

Description:

GCP’s native IaC service.

Key Features:

Uses YAML or Python to define infrastructure, supports templates and reusable configurations.

Use Cases:

Automating infrastructure provisioning and management.

Example Deployment Manager Configuration (YAML):

 
resources:
- name: my-instance
  type: compute.v1.instance
  properties:
    zone: us-central1-a
    machineType: zones/us-central1-a/machineTypes/f1-micro
    disks:
    - deviceName: boot
      type: PERSISTENT
      boot: true
      autoDelete: true
      initializeParams:
        sourceImage: projects/debian-cloud/global/images/family/debian-9
    networkInterfaces:
    - network: global/networks/default

Terraform on GCP

Description:

A popular open-source IaC tool that supports GCP.

Key Features:

Declarative configuration, state management, multi-cloud support.

Use Cases:

Managing infrastructure across multiple cloud providers and on-premises environments.

Example Terraform Configuration:

 
resource "google_compute_instance" "default" {
  name         = "terraform-instance"
  machine_type = "f1-micro"
  zone         = "us-central1-a"

  boot_disk {
    initialize_params {
      image = "debian-cloud/debian-9"
    }
  }

  network_interface {
    network = "default"
  }
}

CI/CD Pipelines

Cloud Build

Description:

GCP’s managed CI/CD service.

Key Features:

Automated build, test, and deployment of applications, integrates with Cloud Source Repositories, GitHub, and Bitbucket.

Use Cases:

Continuous integration and continuous delivery pipelines.

Cloud Build Configuration (cloudbuild.yaml):

 
steps:
- name: 'gcr.io/cloud-builders/docker'
  args: ['build', '-t', 'gcr.io/$PROJECT_ID/my-app:$SHORT_SHA', '.']
- name: 'gcr.io/cloud-builders/docker'
  args: ['push', 'gcr.io/$PROJECT_ID/my-app:$SHORT_SHA']
- name: 'gcr.io/cloud-builders/kubectl'
  args: ['set', 'image', 'deployment/my-app', 'my-app=gcr.io/$PROJECT_ID/my-app:$SHORT_SHA', '-n', 'default']
  env: ['CLOUDSDK_COMPUTE_ZONE=us-central1-a', 'CLOUDSDK_CONTAINER_CLUSTER=my-cluster']

Cloud Deploy

Description:

GCP’s managed continuous delivery service that automates and orchestrates deployments to a variety of environments.

Key Features:

Progressive deployments (canary, blue/green), integrations with Cloud Build, approvals, rollback capabilities.

Use Cases:

Automated and safe deployments of applications to GKE, Cloud Run, and Compute Engine.

Monitoring and Logging

Cloud Monitoring

Description:

Provides visibility into the performance, uptime, and overall health of cloud-powered applications.

Key Features:

Dashboards, alerting, uptime checks, service monitoring.

Use Cases:

Monitoring application performance, infrastructure health, and user experience.

Example Metric Query (PromQL):

 
sum(rate(container_cpu_usage_seconds_total{namespace="production"}[5m])) by (pod)

Cloud Logging

Description:

Centralized log management for GCP services and applications.

Key Features:

Log aggregation, filtering, searching, and exporting.

Use Cases:

Troubleshooting application issues, auditing security events, and analyzing usage patterns.

Example Log Filter:

 
resource.type="gce_instance" AND severity>=ERROR
Download PDF