Create VMs in bulk

This document explains how to create virtual machine (VM) instances that are deployed on Hypercompute Cluster. For more information about creating VMs in bulk, see About bulk creation of VMs in the Compute Engine documentation.

After you request blocks of resources and Compute Engine provisions them, you can start consuming these blocks by creating VMs in bulk. This is useful for managing groups of VMs and incorporating your own workload scheduler.

To learn about other ways to create VMs or clusters, see the Overview page.

Before you begin

  • Select the tab for how you plan to use the samples on this page:

    gcloud

    In the Google Cloud console, activate Cloud Shell.

    Activate Cloud Shell

    At the bottom of the Google Cloud console, a Cloud Shell session starts and displays a command-line prompt. Cloud Shell is a shell environment with the Google Cloud CLI already installed and with values already set for your current project. It can take a few seconds for the session to initialize.

    REST

    To use the REST API samples on this page in a local development environment, you use the credentials you provide to the gcloud CLI.

      Install the Google Cloud CLI, then initialize it by running the following command: 

      gcloud init

    For more information, see Authenticate for using REST in the Google Cloud authentication documentation.

Required roles

To get the permissions that you need to create VMs in bulk, ask your administrator to grant you the Compute Instance Admin (v1) (roles/compute.instanceAdmin.v1) IAM role on the project. For more information about granting roles, see Manage access to projects, folders, and organizations.

This predefined role contains the permissions required to create VMs in bulk. To see the exact permissions that are required, expand the Required permissions section:

Required permissions

The following permissions are required to create VMs in bulk:

  • compute.instances.create on the project
  • To use a custom image to create the VM: compute.images.useReadOnly on the image
  • To use a snapshot to create the VM: compute.snapshots.useReadOnly on the snapshot
  • To use an instance template to create the VM: compute.instanceTemplates.useReadOnly on the instance template
  • To assign a legacy network to the VM: compute.networks.use on the project
  • To specify a static IP address for the VM: compute.addresses.use on the project
  • To assign an external IP address to the VM when using a legacy network: compute.networks.useExternalIp on the project
  • To specify a subnet for your VM: compute.subnetworks.use on the project or on the chosen subnet
  • To assign an external IP address to the VM when using a VPC network: compute.subnetworks.useExternalIp on the project or on the chosen subnet
  • To set VM instance metadata for the VM: compute.instances.setMetadata on the project
  • To set tags for the VM: compute.instances.setTags on the VM
  • To set labels for the VM: compute.instances.setLabels on the VM
  • To set a service account for the VM to use: compute.instances.setServiceAccount on the VM
  • To create a new disk for the VM: compute.disks.create on the project
  • To attach an existing disk in read-only or read-write mode: compute.disks.use on the disk
  • To attach an existing disk in read-only mode: compute.disks.useReadOnly on the disk

You might also be able to get these permissions with custom roles or other predefined roles.

Prerequisites

Before creating VMs in bulk, complete the following steps if you haven't already:

  1. Create a reservation: to have the necessary resources for your VMs, you first need to reserve blocks of resources.

    For instructions, see Request capacity.

  2. Optional: Create a placement policy: to place your VMs in a single block or sub-block and minimize network latency, you can optionally use a compact placement policy. This is useful for workloads that require fast communication among VMs. However, if you need to place your VMs on a specific block to meet particular hardware or network requirements, skip this step and specify the block name when you create the instance template.

    For instructions, see Create a compact placement policy.

  3. Create a regional instance template: to specify the VM configuration, including whether to create your VMs in a specific block within the reservation.

    For instructions, see Create a regional instance template.

Create VMs in bulk

Create VMs in bulk by using the instance template created in the prerequisites step.

To create VMs in bulk to use your reserved blocks of resources, select one of the following options:

gcloud

To create VMs in bulk, use the gcloud beta compute instances bulk create command.

For example, to create VMs in bulk in a single zone and specify a name pattern, run the following command:

gcloud beta compute instances bulk create \
    --count=COUNT \
    --name-pattern="NAME_PATTERN" \
    --source-instance-template=INSTANCE_TEMPLATE_URL \
    --zone=ZONE

Replace the following:

  • COUNT: the number of VMs to create.

  • NAME_PATTERN: the name pattern for the VMs. To replace a sequence of numbers in a VM name, use a sequence of hash (#) characters. For example, using vm-# for the name pattern generates VMs with names starting with vm-1, vm-2, and continuing up to the number of VMs specified by COUNT.

  • INSTANCE_TEMPLATE_URL: the URL of the instance template that you created in the prerequisite steps. Specify one of the following values:

    • For a regional instance template: projects/PROJECT_ID/regions/REGION/instanceTemplates/INSTANCE_TEMPLATE_NAME

    • For a global instance template: INSTANCE_TEMPLATE_NAME

  • ZONE: the zone in which to create VMs in bulk.

REST

To create VMs in bulk, make a POST request to the beta instances.bulkInsert method.

For example, to create VMs in bulk in a single zone and specify a name pattern for the VMs, make a request as follows:

POST https://compute.googleapis.com/compute/beta/projects/PROJECT_ID/zones/ZONE/instances/bulkInsert

{
  "count": "COUNT",
  "namePattern": "NAME_PATTERN",
  "sourceInstanceTemplate": "INSTANCE_TEMPLATE_URL"
}

Replace the following:

  • PROJECT_ID: the ID of the project in which to create VMs in bulk and where the regional instance template that you created in the prerequisite steps is located.

  • ZONE: the zone in which to create VMs in bulk.

  • COUNT: the number of VMs to create.

  • NAME_PATTERN: the name pattern for the VMs. To replace a sequence of numbers in a VM name, use a sequence of hash (#) characters. For example, using vm-# for the name pattern generates VMs with names starting with vm-1, vm-2, and continuing up to the number of VMs specified by COUNT.

  • INSTANCE_TEMPLATE_URL: the URL of the instance template that you created in the prerequisite steps. Specify one of the following values:

    • For a regional instance template: projects/PROJECT_ID/regions/REGION/instanceTemplates/INSTANCE_TEMPLATE_NAME

    • For a global instance template: INSTANCE_TEMPLATE_NAME

For more information about the configuration options when creating VMs in bulk, see Create VMs in bulk in the Compute Engine documentation.

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