Compute Engine | Google Cloud

archived 11 Feb 2025 04:04:58 UTC

Compute Engine

Virtual machines for any workload

Easily create and run online VMs on high-performance, reliable cloud infrastructure. Choose from preset or custom machine types for web servers, databases, AI, and more.
Get one e2-micro VM instance free per month. New customers also get $300 in free credits to try Compute Engine and other Google Cloud products.
Features

Preset and custom configurations

Deploy an application in minutes with prebuilt samples called Jump Start Solutions. Create a dynamic website, load-balanced VM, three-tier web app, or ecommerce web app.
Choose from predefined machine types, sizes, and configurations for any workload, from large enterprise applications, to modern workloads (like containers) or AI/ML projects that require GPUs and TPUs.
For more flexibility, create a custom machine type between 1 and 96 vCPUs with up to 8.0 GB of memory per core. And leverage one of many block storage options, from flexible Persistent Disk to high performance and low-latency Local SSD.

Industry-leading reliability

Compute Engine offers the best single instance compute availability SLA of any cloud provider: 99.95% availability for memory-optimized VMs and 99.9% for all other VM families. 
Is downtime keeping you up at night? Maintain workload continuity during planned and unplanned events with live migration. When a VM goes down, Compute Engine performs a live migration to another host in the same zone.

Automations and recommendations for resource efficiency

Automatically add VMs to handle peak load and replace underperforming instances with managed instance groups. 
Manually adjust your resources using historical data with rightsizing recommendations, or guarantee capacity for planned demand spikes with future reservations.
All of our latest compute instances (including C4A, C4, N4, C3D, X4, and Z3) run on Titanium, a system of purpose-built microcontrollers and tiered scale-out offloads to improve your infrastructure performance, life cycle management, and security.

Transparent pricing and discounting

Review detailed pricing guidance for any VM type or configuration, or use our pricing calculator to get a personalized estimate.
To save on batch jobs and fault-tolerant workloads, use Spot VMs to reduce your bill from 60-91%.
Receive automatic discounts for sustained use, or up to 70% off when you sign up for committed use discounts.

Security controls and configurations

Encrypt data-in-use and while it’s being processed with Confidential VMs. 
Defend against rootkits and bootkits with Shielded VMs.
Meet stringent compliance standards for data residency, sovereignty, access, and encryption with Assured Workloads.

Workload Manager

Now available for SAP workloads, Workload Manager evaluates your application workloads by detecting deviations from documented standards and best practices to proactively prevent issues, continuously analyze workloads, and simplify system troubleshooting.

VM Manager

VM Manager is a suite of tools that can be used to manage operating systems for large virtual machine (VM) fleets running Windows and Linux on Compute Engine.

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.

TPU accelerators

Cloud TPUs can be added to accelerate machine learning and artificial intelligence applications. Cloud TPUs can be reserved, used on-demand, or available as preemptible VMs.

Linux and Windows support

Run your choice of OS, including Debian, CentOS Stream, Fedora 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.

Container support

Run, manage, and orchestrate Docker containers on Compute Engine VMs with Google Kubernetes Engine.

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. 
Choose the right VM for your workload and requirements
OptimizationWorkloadsOur recommendation
Efficient
Lowest cost per core.
  • Web and app servers (low traffic)
  • Dev and test environments
  • Containerized microservices
  • Virtual desktops

General purpose E-Series
Flexible
Best price-performance for balanced and flexible workloads. 
  • Web and app servers (low to medium traffic)
  • Containerized microservices
  • Virtual desktops
  • Back-office, CRM, or BI applications
  • Data pipelines
  • Databases (small to medium sized)
General purpose N-Series
N4, N2, N2D, and N1
Performance
Best performance with advanced capabilities.
  • Web and app servers (high traffic)
  • Ad servers
  • Game servers
  • Data analytics
  • Databases (any size)
  • In-memory caches
  • Media streaming and transcoding
  • CPU-based AI/ML
General purpose C-Series
Compute
Highest compute per core.
  • Web and app servers 
  • Game servers
  • Media streaming and transcoding 
  • Compute-bound workloads 
  • High performance computing (HPC)
  • CPU-based AI/ML
Specialized H-Series
Memory
Highest memory per core.
  • Databases (large)
  • In-memory caches
  • Electronic design automation
  • Modeling and simulation
Specialized M-Series 
Storage
Highest storage per core.
  • Data analytics
  • Databases (large horizontal scale-out, flash-optimized, data warehouses, and more)
Specialized Z-Series
Inference and visualization with GPUs
Best performance for inference and visualization tasks requiring GPUs.
  • CUDA-enabled ML training and inference
  • Video transcoding
Specialized G-series
All other GPU tasks
Highest performing GPUs.
  • Massively parallelized computation 
  • BERT natural language processing 
  • Deep learning recommendation model (DLRM)
Specialized A-series
Efficient
Lowest cost per core.
Workloads
  • Web and app servers (low traffic)
  • Dev and test environments
  • Containerized microservices
  • Virtual desktops

Our recommendation
General purpose E-Series
Flexible
Best price-performance for balanced and flexible workloads. 
Workloads
  • Web and app servers (low to medium traffic)
  • Containerized microservices
  • Virtual desktops
  • Back-office, CRM, or BI applications
  • Data pipelines
  • Databases (small to medium sized)
Our recommendation
General purpose N-Series
N4, N2, N2D, and N1
Performance
Best performance with advanced capabilities.
Workloads
  • Web and app servers (high traffic)
  • Ad servers
  • Game servers
  • Data analytics
  • Databases (any size)
  • In-memory caches
  • Media streaming and transcoding
  • CPU-based AI/ML
Our recommendation
General purpose C-Series
Compute
Highest compute per core.
Workloads
  • Web and app servers 
  • Game servers
  • Media streaming and transcoding 
  • Compute-bound workloads 
  • High performance computing (HPC)
  • CPU-based AI/ML
Our recommendation
Specialized H-Series
Memory
Highest memory per core.
Workloads
  • Databases (large)
  • In-memory caches
  • Electronic design automation
  • Modeling and simulation
Our recommendation
Specialized M-Series 
Storage
Highest storage per core.
Workloads
  • Data analytics
  • Databases (large horizontal scale-out, flash-optimized, data warehouses, and more)
Our recommendation
Specialized Z-Series
Inference and visualization with GPUs
Best performance for inference and visualization tasks requiring GPUs.
Workloads
  • CUDA-enabled ML training and inference
  • Video transcoding
Our recommendation
Specialized G-series
All other GPU tasks
Highest performing GPUs.
Workloads
  • Massively parallelized computation 
  • BERT natural language processing 
  • Deep learning recommendation model (DLRM)
Our recommendation
Specialized A-series
How It Works

Compute Engine is a computing and hosting service that lets you create and run virtual machines on Google infrastructure, comparable to Amazon EC2 and Azure Virtual Machines. Compute Engine offers scale, performance, and value that lets you easily launch large compute clusters with no up-front investment.

Compute Engine in 2-minutes
Compute Engine in 2-minutes
Common Uses

Create your first VM

Three ways to get started

  1. Complete a tutorial. Learn how to deploy a Linux VM, Windows Server VM, load balanced VM, Java app, custom website, LAMP stack, and much more.
  2. Deploy a pre-configured sample application—Jump Start Solution—in just a few clicks.
  3. Create a VM from scratch using the Google Cloud console, CLI, API, or Client Libraries like C#, Go, and Java. Use our documentation for step-by-step guidance.
Documentation: Creating a VM instance
Creating a VM instance

How to choose the right VM

With thousands of applications, each with different requirements, which VM is right for you?
Video: Choose the right VM
Choose the right VM

Migrate and optimize enterprise applications

Three ways to get started

  1. Complete a lab or tutorial. Generate a rapid estimate of your migration costs, learn how to migrate a Linux VM, VMware, SQL servers, and much more.
  2. Visit the Cloud Architecture Center for advice on how to plan, design, and implement your cloud migration.
  3. Apply for end-to-end migration and modernization support via Google Cloud’s Rapid Migration Program (RaMP).
Guide: Migrate to Google Cloud

Access documentation, guides, and reference architectures

Migration Center is Google Cloud's unified migration platform. With features like cloud spend estimation, asset discovery, and a variety of tooling for different migration scenarios, it provides you with what you need to get started.
Start here: Google Cloud Migration Center
Migration center overview

Backup and restore your applications

Explore your options

Compute Engine offers ways to backup and restore:
  1. Virtual machine instances
  2. Persistent Disk and Hyperdisk volumes
  3. Workloads running in Compute Engine and on-premises
Start with a tutorial, or read the detailed options in our documentation.
Documentation: Backup and restore

    Access a fully managed backup and disaster recovery service

    We offer a managed backup and disaster recovery (DR) service for centralized data protection of VMs and other workloads running in Google Cloud and on-premises. It uses snapshots to incrementally backup data from your persistent disks at the instance level.
    Overview: Backup and DR service

    Run modern container-based applications

    Three ways to deploy containers

    Containers let you run your apps with fewer dependencies on the host virtual machine and independently from other containerized apps using the same host.
    1. If you need complete control over your environment, run container images directly on Compute Engine.
    2. To simplify cluster management and container orchestration tasks, use Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE).
    3. To completely remove the need for clusters or infrastructure management, use Cloud Run.
    Guide: What are containers?

    Infrastructure for AI workloads

    AI-optimized hardware

    We designed the accelerator-optimized machine family to deliver the performance and efficiency you need for AI workloads. Start by comparing our GPUs, or learn about TPUs for large scale AI training and inference tasks.
    Documentation: Accelerator-optimized VMs
    What’s the difference between a CPU, GPU, and TPU?
    Pricing
    How Compute Engine pricing worksCompute Engine pricing varies based on your requirements for performance, storage, networking, location, and more.
    ServicesDescriptionPrice (USD)
    Get started free
    New users get $300 in free trial credits to use within 90 days.
    Free
    The Compute Engine free tier gives you one e2-micro VM instance, up to 30 GB storage, and up to 1 GB of outbound data transfers per month.
    Free
    VM instances
    Pay-as-you-go
    Only pay for the services you use. No up-front fees. No termination charges. Pricing varies by product and usage.
    Starting at
    $0.01
    (e2-micro)
    Encrypt data-in-use and while it’s being processed.
    Starting at
    $0.936
    Per vCPU per month
    Physical servers dedicated to your project. Pay a premium on top of the standard price (pay-as-you-go rate for selected vCPU and memory resources).
    +10%
    On top of standard price
    Discount: Committed use
    Pay less when you commit to a minimum spend in advance.
    Save up to 70%
    Discount: Spot VMs
    Pay less when you run fault-tolerant jobs using excess Compute Engine capacity.
    Save up to 91%
    Discount: Sustained use
    Pay less on resources that are used for more than 25% of a month (and are not receiving any other discounts).

    Save up to 30%
    Storage
    Durable network storage devices that your virtual machine (VM) instances can access. The data on each Persistent Disk volume is distributed across several physical disks.
    Starting at
    $0.04
    Per GB per month
    The fastest persistent disk storage for Compute Engine, with configurable performance and volumes that can be dynamically resized.
    Starting at
    $0.125
    Per GB per month
    Physically attached to the server that hosts your VM.
    Starting at
    $0.08
    Per GB per month
    Networking
    Leverage the public internet to carry traffic between your services and your users.
    Free
    Inbound transfers, always. Outbound transfers, up to 200 GB per month.
    Leverage Google's premium backbone to carry traffic to and from your external users.

    Starting at
    $0.08
    Per GB per month for outbound data transfers. Inbound transfers remain free.
    To estimate costs based on your requirements, use our pricing calculator or reach out to our sales team to request a quote.
    How Compute Engine pricing works
    Compute Engine pricing varies based on your requirements for performance, storage, networking, location, and more.
    Get started free
    Description
    New users get $300 in free trial credits to use within 90 days.
    Price (USD)
    Free
    The Compute Engine free tier gives you one e2-micro VM instance, up to 30 GB storage, and up to 1 GB of outbound data transfers per month.
    Description
    Free
    VM instances
    Description
    Pay-as-you-go
    Only pay for the services you use. No up-front fees. No termination charges. Pricing varies by product and usage.
    Price (USD)
    Starting at
    $0.01
    (e2-micro)
    Encrypt data-in-use and while it’s being processed.
    Description
    Starting at
    $0.936
    Per vCPU per month
    Physical servers dedicated to your project. Pay a premium on top of the standard price (pay-as-you-go rate for selected vCPU and memory resources).
    Description
    +10%
    On top of standard price
    Discount: Committed use
    Pay less when you commit to a minimum spend in advance.
    Description
    Save up to 70%
    Discount: Spot VMs
    Pay less when you run fault-tolerant jobs using excess Compute Engine capacity.
    Description
    Save up to 91%
    Discount: Sustained use
    Pay less on resources that are used for more than 25% of a month (and are not receiving any other discounts).

    Description
    Save up to 30%
    Storage
    Description
    Durable network storage devices that your virtual machine (VM) instances can access. The data on each Persistent Disk volume is distributed across several physical disks.
    Price (USD)
    Starting at
    $0.04
    Per GB per month
    The fastest persistent disk storage for Compute Engine, with configurable performance and volumes that can be dynamically resized.
    Description
    Starting at
    $0.125
    Per GB per month
    Physically attached to the server that hosts your VM.
    Description
    Starting at
    $0.08
    Per GB per month
    Networking
    Description
    Leverage the public internet to carry traffic between your services and your users.
    Price (USD)
    Free
    Inbound transfers, always. Outbound transfers, up to 200 GB per month.
    Leverage Google's premium backbone to carry traffic to and from your external users.

    Description
    Starting at
    $0.08
    Per GB per month for outbound data transfers. Inbound transfers remain free.
    To estimate costs based on your requirements, use our pricing calculator or reach out to our sales team to request a quote.

    Pricing Calculator

    Estimate your monthly Compute Engine charges, including cluster management fees.

    Need help?

    Chat to us online, call us directly or request a call back.

    Start your proof of concept

    New customers get $300 in free credits to try Compute and other Google Cloud products.

    Have a large project?

    Browse quickstarts, tutorials, or interactive walkthroughs for Compute Engine

    Choose a learning path, build your skills, and validate your knowledge with Cloud Skills Boost

    Learn and experiment with pre-built solution templates handpicked by our experts

    Business Case

    Learn from Compute Engine customers

    Migrating 40,000 on-prem VMs to the cloud, Sabre reduced their IT costs by 40%.
    Joe DiFonzo, CIO, Sabre
    “We’ve taken hundreds of millions of dollars of costs out of our business.”
    Watch the interview
    Partners & Integration
    Accelerate your migration with partners
    • Stratozone
    • RISC
    • Cloudamize
    • atadata
    • accenture
    • deloitte
    • rackspace
    • sada
    • wipro
    Ready to move your compute workloads to Google Cloud? These partners can guide you through every stage—from initial planning and assessment to migration.
    FAQ

    What is Compute Engine? What can it do?

    keyboard_arrow_up
    Compute Engine is an Infrastructure-as-a-Service product offering flexible, self-managed virtual machines (VMs) hosted on Google's infrastructure. Compute Engine includes Linux and Windows-based VMs running on KVM, local and durable storage options, and a simple REST-based API for configuration and control. The service integrates with Google Cloud technologies, such as Cloud Storage, App Engine, and BigQuery to extend beyond the basic computational capability to create more complex and sophisticated apps.
    More ways to get your questions answered
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