How to Create a Google Cloud Project GCP Step by Step
Google Cloud projects are the foundational element you need to establish before creating any resources in Google Cloud Platform (GCP). Whether you’re setting up virtual machines, Kubernetes clusters, or managing permissions, everything starts with a project. In this guide, we’ll explore why projects matter, common project organization strategies, and a practical step-by-step walkthrough for creating and managing your first Google Cloud project.
Understanding Google Cloud Projects and Their Role
A project in GCP acts as a container for all your resources, APIs, and permissions. Without a project, your APIs don’t exist, and without APIs, resources like networking, VMs, and Kubernetes clusters will not function.
You can have an organization that represents a company or you as an individual, and within this organization, you create projects. Each project is essential as it ties together the APIs with the resources you want to use.
Common Project Organization Strategies
How you organize your projects depends largely on your needs and security requirements. Here are some typical strategies:
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Single Project for Individual Use: If you are working solo, you might have just one project for everything such as for YouTube demos or personal testing. This keeps things simple.
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Customer Isolation in Organizations: Companies like banks managing multiple clients can have separate projects for each customer to ensure strict data isolation. This separation protects customer data and limits the blast radius of any faults.
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Environment Separation (Dev and Prod): Another common approach is to have separate projects for different environments like development (dev) and production (prod). This enables safer testing and gradual migration of workloads such as migrating VMs to Kubernetes while ensuring production remains stable.
Note: Sometimes people create multiple clusters within one project for dev and prod, but this can complicate permissions and increase risks if changes affect both environments. Separate projects help maintain clearer isolation and reduce accidental disruptions.
Setting Up Your First Google Cloud Project: A Practical Walkthrough
- Create a Google Cloud Account
- Head to the Google Cloud Console and sign up. Free credits are usually provided to help you get started.
- Create a New Project
- After logging in, select “New Project”. Name it appropriately (e.g., “YouTube Demo”). For individual accounts, you may not have an organization to select.
- Once created, select your project from the top-left dropdown to start working within it.
- Set Up Billing
- Projects require billing accounts to function, even if you have free credits. This is a common pitfall. Add a billing account and link it to your project. Billing actually exists outside projects and must be paired to it.
- Enable Required APIs
- When creating resources like VMs, you might be prompted to enable APIs such as Compute Engine API. Enable these APIs by following prompts
- Create Resources (e.g., Virtual Machines)
- Navigate to Compute Engine and create an instance. Choose machine specs as needed and create the VM.
- Once created, you can SSH into the VM and use it as a Linux environment to practice or run services.
- Cleanup: Deleting Resources and Projects
- When finished, delete your VM to avoid incurring costs.
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To delete the project, go to Project Settings, type the project ID (not the name; be careful of spaces), and confirm shutdown. This moves the project to pending deletion.
- You can also delete it again under Manage Resources to fully remove it.
Takeaways
- Google Cloud projects are the essential building block for managing APIs and resources.
- Organizing projects depends on your use case: individual use, customer isolation, or environment separation are typical patterns.
- Billing accounts must be linked to your projects to enable resource creation.
- API enablement is required per project to create resources like VMs.
- Cleanup procedures help avoid unexpected charges and keep your GCP environment tidy.
