Machine Images: 1 best way to Maintain Cloud Consistency

Introduction

Machine images play a pivotal role in cloud computing services. They are one of the fascinating features and tools that are used to streamline operations and enhance efficiency in the Google Cloud Platform (GCP). Their importance in Cloud computing cannot be overemphasized hence we shall explore machine image, the different types available in GCP, and also highlight the different benefits they offer to cloud computing.

What is a machine image in GCP?

A machine image in Google Cloud Platform (GCP) is a snapshot of a virtual machine (VM) instance that includes the VM’s operating system, boot disk, and other configuration settings. It’s like taking a picture of your computer’s hard drive, preserving the entire system’s state, including the operating system, applications, and data. Machine images can be used to create new and identical VM instances with the same configuration and contents, or to restore a VM instance to a previous state.

In advanced terms, a machine image is a compute engine resource that stores all the configurations metadata, permissions, and data from one or more disks required to create a virtual machine instance.

Types of Machine Images in GCP

GCP offers several types of machine images to cater to diverse needs and use cases: There are two main types in GCP:

Public images:

 These are also known as system or boot images. They are images that are pre-configured, provided, and maintained by Google and are available to all GCP users. These images are ideal for quick and hassle-free VM deployments, especially for beginners. Public images from Google, third-party vendors, and the community, Premium images (P) include operating system images, such as Ubuntu and Windows along with specific versions and configurations optimized for GCP. They also include images for specific applications, such as TensorFlow and Kubernetes. Examples of public images include;

• Linux:
  – Centos, Core OS, Debian, RHEL (P), Ubuntu OPENUSE, and FreeBSD
• Windows:
  – Windows Server 2019 (P), 2016 (P), 2012 r2 (P)
  – SQL Server Pre-installed on Windows (P)

Custom images:

These are images that you create yourself from a VM instance. Custom images allow users to create machine images tailored to their specific requirements. Custom images can be used to capture the specific configuration of a VM instance, such as the installed software and settings. This is valuable for maintaining consistent environments across multiple VMs and ensuring that your software stack remains intact. You can create new images from VM pre-configured and configured software. Users can also import from on-prem, workstation, or another cloud.  

• Other Machine images in GCP apart from Public and Custom Images include

Instance Templates

Instance templates as machine images go a step further by bundling a custom image with additional configuration options, such as the VM’s machine type, region, and startup scripts. They simplify the process of launching multiple VMs with the same specifications, enabling efficient autoscaling and load balancing.

Container-Optimized OS Images

GCP offers Container-Optimized OS images which are ideal for containerized applications. These machine images are lightweight and designed to run container workloads efficiently. They come with Docker and Kubernetes pre-installed, making it easy to deploy and manage containerized applications.

Benefits of using machine images in GCP

There are many benefits to using machine images in GCP, including:

Efficiency:
Machine images can help you save time and resources by allowing you to create new VM instances quickly and easily. Whether you need to deploy additional VMs to handle increased traffic or recover from a failure, creating new instances from machine images is a speedy process.

Consistency: 
Machine images ensure consistency in your infrastructure. They can help you to ensure that your VM instances are consistent and have the same configuration. This can be helpful for troubleshooting problems and for ensuring that your applications are running in a consistent environment. You can create VMs with the same software stack and configurations repeatedly, reducing the risk of errors and ensuring that all instances are identical. Succinctly put, consistency simplifies troubleshooting and maintenance.

Flexibility: 
Machine images can be used to create new VM instances in different regions and zones. This can give you more flexibility in terms of where your applications are hosted.

Reliability: 
Machine images can be used to back up your VM instances. This can help you to protect your data in case of a disaster. You can use machine images in many system maintenance scenarios such as creation, backup, recovery, and instance cloning. Machine images are the ideal resources for this backup, and instance cloning and replication.

Cost Optimization

Machine images help you optimize costs by allowing you to start and stop VMs as needed. For instance, you can create VMs from machine images when demand is high and delete them when it decreases. This elasticity ensures you only pay for the resources you actually use.

Disaster Recovery

Machine images are invaluable for disaster recovery planning. You can regularly capture snapshots of your VMs, ensuring that you have a backup of your entire system. In the event of a failure, you can quickly restore your infrastructure to a known good state.

DevOps and Automation

Machine images are an essential tool for DevOps practices and automation. They enable infrastructure as code (IaC) approaches, allowing you to define your infrastructure in code and recreate it easily. This simplifies deployment pipelines and ensures consistency across development, testing, and production environments.

How to create a machine image in GCP

To create a machine image in GCP, you can use the Google Cloud Console, the gcloud command-line tool, or the Compute Engine API.

To create a machine image using the Google Cloud Console, follow these steps:

• Go to the Compute Engine page in the Google Cloud Console.
• Click the Machine Images tab.
• Click the Create machine image button.
• Enter a name for your machine image.
• Select the VM instance that you want to create an image from.
• (Optional) Select a storage location for your machine image.
• Click the Create button.

To create a machine image using the gcloud command-line tool, run the following command:

gcloud compute machine-images create IMAGE_NAME\ –source-instance INSTANCE_NAME

Replace IMAGE_NAME with the name of your machine image, and INSTANCE_NAME with the name of the VM instance that you want to create an image from.

To create a machine image using the Compute Engine API, use the

compute.images.create() method.

When to use machine images

Machine images can be used in a variety of scenarios, including:

• Creating new VM instances: Machine images can be used to quickly and easily create new VM instances with the same configuration as the source VM instance.
• Backing up VM instances: You can use a Machine image to back up your VM instances so that you can restore them in case of a disaster.
• Cloning VM instances: Machine images can be used to create clones of VM instances. This can be helpful for troubleshooting problems or for creating test environments.
• Deploying applications: They can be used to deploy applications to new VM instances. This can help you to ensure that your applications are consistent and have the same configuration.

Conclusion

Machine images are a core component of the Google Cloud Platform. They are a powerful tool that can be used to manage your VM instances in GCP. By understanding the different types of machine images and their benefits, you can use them to improve the efficiency, consistency, and flexibility of your deployments. Whether you’re looking to streamline operations, optimize costs, or enhance disaster recovery capabilities, you can leverage machine images and the benefits they offer to unlock their full potential in cloud computing in the GCP.