Thetenancy of a virtual machine (VM) instance indicates whether the VM sharesits Compute Engine server with VMs from other Google Cloud projects. If a VMshares its Compute Engine server with VMs from otherGoogle Cloud projects, it is amulti-tenant VM. If a VM doesn't share itsCompute Engine server with VMs from other projects, it is asole-tenant VM.

VMs are multi-tenant by default. After you create a VM, Compute Engineplaces it on a multi-tenant server. Compute Engine allows users inotherGoogle Cloud projectsto create VMs on that server.

Sole-tenancy is suited for workloadsthat require exclusive access to a Compute Engine server. Sole-tenancylets you have exclusive access to asole-tenant node, which is aCompute Engine server that is dedicated to hosting VMs from only yourGoogle Cloud projects.

Pricing considerations

For multi-tenant VMs, you pay for the type of machine that you create the VM on,sopricing for multi-tenant VMs is based on thatVM'smachine family.

For sole-tenant VMs, you pay for all of the hardware resources on the serverbecause you are reserving an entire physical server.Pricing for a sole-tenantnode is based on the price of thesole-tenantnode type that you specifywhen you create asole-tenant nodetemplate. This priceincludes a premium because you are reserving the entire physical server.

Workload considerations

For typical workloads,create multi-tenantVMs. However, if you haveworkloads with any of the following characteristics, considerusing sole-tenantnodes:

• Gaming workloads with specific computing performance requirements.
• Finance or healthcare workloads with security and compliance requirements.
• Windows workloads with licensing requirements.
• Machine learning, data processing, or image rendering workloads. For theseworkloads, considerreserving GPUs.
• Workloads requiring increased input/output operations per second (IOPS) anddecreased latency, or workloads that use temporary storage in the form ofcaches, processing space, or low-value data. For these workloads, considerreserving Local SSDs.

For more information about workloads that might benefit from using sole-tenancy,seeWorkload considerations for sole-tenantnodes.

Maintenance event considerations

For maintenance events on multi-tenant servers, Compute Enginelivemigrates VMs to another server in thesame zone.

For maintenance events on sole-tenant nodes, Compute Engine migratesVMs according to how you configure themaintenancepolicy on thesole-tenant nodegroup.