Preview

This feature is subject to the "Pre-GA Offerings Terms" in the General Service Terms section of theService Specific Terms. Pre-GA features are available "as is" and might have limited support. For more information, see thelaunch stage descriptions.

VM Extension Manager helps you manage extensions on yourCompute Engine virtual machines (VMs) at scale. Extensions are optionalplugins of theCompute Engine guest agent,which runs on your VMs to provide additional functionality. Google Clouddevelops these extensions to help you monitor and manage your workloads runningon Compute Engine VMs. For more information, see thesupportedextensions.

You can use VM Extension Manager to automate the lifecycle of theseextensions across your entire fleet of VMs, without connecting to each VM. Itinstalls and runs extensions on VMs only when a policy is applied to the VM, andremoves the extensions when you delete the policy. After you install extensions,VM Extension Manager monitors their health status while they arerunning.

To manage extensions, VM Extension Manager communicates with the guestagent on each VM through a secure, standardized communication channel.

VM Extension Manager overview

You can use VM Extension Manager to create policies that declare whichextensions you want to install on VMs. You can also choose VMs that matchspecific criteria—for example, VMs with specific labels. These extensionpolicies apply to both existing VMs and any new VMs that match the criteria. Youcan create eitherzonal extension policiesorglobal extension policiesto manage extensions on your VMs.

VM Extension Manager functions

VM Extension Manager lets you do the following:

• Install extensions at scale: Use policies to install extensions acrosslarge fleets of VMs, instead of connecting to each machine individually.

• Automate extension updates: Configure policies to keep extensions pinnedto a specific version, or automatically updated to the latest version as itbecomes available.

  Note: Pinning extensions to a specific version is supported only for the Ops Agent.

• View extension status: See which extensions are installed on each VMwithout logging in to individual machines.

Supported extensions

VM Extension Manager supports installing and managing the followingextensions:

Note: For extensions to install successfully on your VMs, you must firstenablethe required APIs in the projectwhere the VMs exist. If you don't enable the required APIs, extensions fail toinstall on your VMs even if you create an extension policy. The following tablelists the service APIs required for each extension.

Extension	Description	Required APIs
Ops Agent	Installs theOps Agent, which collects logs and metrics from your Compute Engine instances, so that you can view these telemetry on Google Cloud Observability dashboards.	Cloud Monitoring API Cloud Logging API
Extension for SAP	InstallsGoogle Cloud's Agent for SAP, which is required for SAP systems running on Google Cloud. The agent collects SAP Host Agent metrics, Process Monitoring metrics, and Workload Manager evaluation metrics.	Workload Manager API
Extension for Compute Workload	InstallsAgent for Compute Workloads, which you can configure to collect metrics from multiple workloads running on Compute Engine instances.	Workload Manager API

Supported operating systems

Note: Support for SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES) and Ubuntu operatingsystems is not available.

VM Extension Manager supports installing extensions on any operatingsystem that is supported by the specific extension. For details about supportedoperating systems for each extension, see the following:

• Ops Agent:Supported operating systems
• Extension for SAP:Supported operating systems
• Extension for Compute Workloads:Supported operating systems

Limitations

VM Extension Manager supports creating extension policies only at aproject level.

Quotas

Each Google Cloud project has a limit of 100 VM extension policies per zone.There is no limit on the number of VMs you can select per policy.

Pricing

There is no charge for using VM Extension Manager. However, you mightincur charges from using the extensions installed by the policies. For moreinformation, see the pricing pages for the specific extensions:

• Ops Agent pricing
• Extension for SAP pricing
• Extension for Compute Workloads pricing

What's next

To learn more about managing extensions, see the following resources:

• Learn about global extension policies
• Learn about zonal extension policies
• Install VM extensions by creating extension policies
• Manage VM extensions by using extension policies