Learn how to get started creating a workstation cluster withCloud Workstations.

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To follow step-by-step guidance for this task directly in the Google Cloud console, clickGuide me:

Guide me

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Before you begin

Before you begin using Cloud Workstations, be sure that you have therequired permissions and that you complete these required setup steps.You can skip this section if you've already completed this setup.

Sign in to your Google Cloud account. If you're new to Google Cloud, create an account to evaluate how our products perform in real-world scenarios. New customers also get $300 in free credits to run, test, and deploy workloads.

In the Google Cloud console, on the project selector page, select or create a Google Cloud project.

Roles required to select or create a project

• Select a project: Selecting a project doesn't require a specific IAM role—you can select any project that you've been granted a role on.
• Create a project: To create a project, you need the Project Creator role (roles/resourcemanager.projectCreator), which contains theresourcemanager.projects.create permission.Learn how to grant roles.

Note: If you don't plan to keep the resources that you create in this procedure, create a project instead of selecting an existing project. After you finish these steps, you can delete the project, removing all resources associated with the project.

Go to project selector

Verify that billing is enabled for your Google Cloud project.

In the Google Cloud console, on the project selector page, select or create a Google Cloud project.

Roles required to select or create a project

• Select a project: Selecting a project doesn't require a specific IAM role—you can select any project that you've been granted a role on.
• Create a project: To create a project, you need the Project Creator role (roles/resourcemanager.projectCreator), which contains theresourcemanager.projects.create permission.Learn how to grant roles.

Note: If you don't plan to keep the resources that you create in this procedure, create a project instead of selecting an existing project. After you finish these steps, you can delete the project, removing all resources associated with the project.

Go to project selector

Verify that billing is enabled for your Google Cloud project.

1. Enable the Cloud Workstations API.

   Roles required to enable APIs

   To enable APIs, you need the Service Usage Admin IAM role (roles/serviceusage.serviceUsageAdmin), which contains theserviceusage.services.enable permission.Learn how to grant roles.

   Enable the API

2. Make sure that you have a Cloud Workstations Admin IAM role on the project so that you can create workstation configurations. To check your IAM roles in the Google Cloud console, go to theIAM page:

   Go to IAM

3. Cloud Workstations are hosted on VMs booted from Compute Engine's preconfigured publicContainer-Optimized OS (COS) images. If theconstraints/compute.trustedimageProjects organization policy constraint is enforced, you mustset image access constraints to allow users to create boot disks fromprojects/cos-cloud or all public images.
4. Optional: Enable the Container File System API to allow faster workstation startup.

   Enable the Container File System API

   For more information, seeReduce workstation startup time with Image streaming.

Create your workstation cluster

Workstation clusters define a group of workstations in a particular region,manage workstations during their lifecycle, and provide configurablenetwork connectivity.

Workstation clusters aren't related to Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE) clusters.

To create a workstation cluster, follow these steps:

1. In the console,navigate to theCloud Workstations >Cluster management page.

   Go to Cluster management

2. From the workstationsCluster management page, clickadd_boxCreate.

3. In theName field, enter a name for your workstation cluster.

4. Select theRegion that is closest to you.

5. Optional: To create your workstations inside aVPC,expand theNetwork settings section and select your custom network.

   1. In theNetwork field, enter the name for your network—for example,test-network.

   2. In theSubnetwork field, enter the name for your subnetwork—forexample,test-subnetwork.

   3. In theGateway type section, selectPublic gateway orPrivate gateway.

      • To make your workstations accessible from public networks, selectPublic gateway.

      • If you requiredata residency for data in transit, selectPrivate gateway.

      • To allow ingress and egress to the workstations service from insidethe selected network, selectPrivate gateway. For more information about creating a private clusters, seeConfigure VPC Service Controls and private clusters

6. ClickCreate, which begins the cluster creation process.

Workstation cluster creation can take up to 20 minutes, but in mostcases is only needed once.

Clean up

To delete a workstation cluster from the Google Cloud console:

1. In the Google Cloud console, go toCloud Workstations > Clusters.
2. Select the checkbox beside the cluster that you want to delete.
3. Click themore_vertMore optionsmenu and selectDelete to delete the selected workstation cluster.

For more about deleting workstations, workstation configurations,and Google Cloud projects,seeDelete resources.

What's next

• Learn more about configuring options in yourworkstation configuration.

• Use theCloud Workstations base editor.