VPC controls for generative AI use cases

This document includes the best practices and guidelines for Virtual Private Cloud (VPC) when running generative AI workloads on Google Cloud. Use VPC with Vertex AI to isolate your AI resources from the internet in a secure environment. This network configuration helps protect sensitive data and models from unauthorized access and potential cyberattacks.

You can define granular firewall rules and access controls within your VPC network to restrict traffic and only allow authorized connections to specific resources.

Organize your Vertex AI resources into separate VPC networks based on function or security requirements. This type of organization helps isolate resources and prevents unauthorized access between different projects or teams. You can create dedicated VPC networks for sensitive workloads, such as training models with confidential data, ensuring that only authorized users and services have network access.

You can use Cloud VPN or Cloud Interconnect to establish a secure network connection between your on-premises infrastructure and your Vertex AI environment. Cloud VPN or Cloud Interconnect help enable seamless data transfer and communication between your private network and Google Cloud resources. Consider this integration for scenarios like accessing on-premises data for model training or deploying models to on-premises resources for inference.

Required VPC controls

The following controls are strongly recommended when using VPC.

Block default network creation

Google control ID VPC-CO-6.1
Category Required
Description
The compute.skipDefaultNetworkCreation boolean constraint skips the creation of the default network and related resources when creating Google Cloud projects. By default, a network is automatically created with firewall rules and network configurations which might not be considered secure.
Applicable products
  • Organization Policy Service
  • Virtual Private Cloud (VPC)
Path constraints/compute.skipDefaultNetworkCreation
Value
  • True
Type Boolean
Related NIST-800-53 controls
  • SC-7
  • SC-8
Related CRI profile controls
  • PR.AC-5.1
  • PR.AC-5.2
  • PR.DS-2.1
  • PR.DS-2.2
  • PR.DS-5.1
  • PR.PT-4.1
  • DE.CM-1.1
  • DE.CM-1.2
  • DE.CM-1.3
  • DE.CM-1.4
Related information

Define list of VM instances that are permitted external IP addresses

Google control ID VPC-CO-6.2
Category Required
Description
The compute.vmExternalIpAccess list constraint defines the set of Compute Engine VM instances that can have external IP addresses. This constraint isn't retroactive.
Applicable products
  • Organization Policy Service
  • Virtual Private Cloud (VPC)
  • Compute Engine
Path constraints/compute.vmExternalIpAccess
Operator =
Value
  • The list of VM instances in your organization that can have external IP addresses.
Type List
Related NIST-800-53 controls
  • SC-7
  • SC-8
Related CRI profile controls
  • PR.AC-5.1
  • PR.AC-5.2
  • PR.DS-2.1
  • PR.DS-2.2
  • PR.DS-5.1
  • PR.PT-4.1
  • DE.CM-1.1
  • DE.CM-1.2
  • DE.CM-1.3
  • DE.CM-1.4
Related information

Define VM instances that can enable IP forwarding

Google control ID VPC-CO-6.3
Category Required
Description
The compute.vmCanIpForward constraint defines the VM instances that can enable IP forwarding. By default, any VM can enable IP forwarding in any virtual network. Specify VM instances using one of the following formats:
  • under:organizations/ORGANIZATION_ID
  • under:folders/FOLDER_ID
  • under:projects/PROJECT_ID
  • projects/PROJECT_ID/zones/ZONE/instances/INSTANCE_NAME.
This constraint isn't retroactive.
Applicable products
  • Organization Policy Service
  • Virtual Private Cloud (VPC)
  • Compute Engine
Path constraints/compute.vmCanIpForward
Operator =
Value
  • Your list of VM instances that can enable IP forwarding.
Type List
Related NIST-800-53 controls
  • SC-7
  • SC-8
Related CRI profile controls
  • PR.AC-5.1
  • PR.AC-5.2
  • PR.DS-2.1
  • PR.DS-2.2
  • PR.DS-5.1
  • PR.PT-4.1
  • DE.CM-1.1
  • DE.CM-1.2
  • DE.CM-1.3
  • DE.CM-1.4
Related information

Disable VM-nested virtualization

Google control ID VPC-CO-6.6
Category Required
Description
The compute.disableNestedVirtualization boolean constraint disables hardware-accelerated nested virtualization for Compute Engine VMs.
Applicable products
  • Organization Policy Service
  • Virtual Private Cloud (VPC)
  • Compute Engine
Path constraints/compute.disableNestedVirtualization
Operator Is
Value
  • True
Type Boolean
Related NIST-800-53 controls
  • SC-7
  • SC-8
Related CRI profile controls
  • PR.AC-5.1
  • PR.AC-5.2
  • PR.DS-2.1
  • PR.DS-2.2
  • PR.DS-5.1
  • PR.PT-4.1
  • DE.CM-1.1
  • DE.CM-1.2
  • DE.CM-1.3
  • DE.CM-1.4
Related information

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