Vector Search setup

Depending on your use case, your setup might look different for creating and deploying an index. The main differentiator is whether you want to deploy your index to a public endpoint, or to your own Virtual Private Cloud (VPC). If you decide to use a VPC, you can also enable Private Service Connect. Private Service Connect allows private consumption of services across VPC networks that belong to different groups, teams, projects, or organizations.

Public endpoint overview

Using a public endpoint requires no prerequisite work, besides making sure your vector is formatted correctly.

To learn how to format your vector, see Input data format and structure.

VPC overview

If you want to use a VPC, you must first set up networking.

See Set up a VPC Network Peering connection.

Configuring a VPC Network Peering connection is an initial task required only one time per Google Cloud project. After this setup is done, you can make calls to the Vector Search index from any client running inside your VPC.