Deploying an Enterprise Mode Database in GCP from the Marketplace

The Vertica Cloud Launcher solution creates a Vertica Enterprise Mode database. The solution includes the Vertica Management Console (MC) as the primary UI for you to get started.

The launcher automatically creates a database named vdb using the Community Edition (CE) license. The CE license is limited to a maximum of 3 nodes. You can tell the launcher to add more than 3 nodes to your deployment. In this case, it uses the first three nodes in the cluster to create the database. The remaining nodes are not part of the database, but are added to your cluster. To add these nodes to your database, you must replace the Community Edition license with a license key you receive from the Software Entitlement support site. See Managing Licenses for more information.

After the launcher creates the initial database, it configures the MC to attach to that database automatically.

Configure the Vertica Cloud Launcher Solution

To get started with a deployment of Vertica from the Google Cloud Launcher, search for the Vertica Data Warehouse, Enterprise Mode entry.

Follow these steps:

Verify that your user account has the Editor role and the runtimeconfig.waiters.getIamPolicy permission.
From the listing page, click LAUNCH.
On the New Vertica Analytics Platform deployment page, enter the following information:
- Deployment name: Each deployment must have a unique name. That name is used as the prefix for the names of all VMs created during the deployment. The deployment name can only contain lowercase characters, numbers, and dashes. The name must start with a lowercase letter and cannot end with a dash.
- Zone: GCP breaks its cloud data centers into regions and zones. Regions are a collection of zones in the same geographical location. Zones are collections of compute resources, which vary from zone to zone.
  
  For best results, pick the zone in your designated region that supports the latest Intel CPUs. For a complete listing of regions and zones, including supported processors, see Regions and Zones.
- Service Account: Service accounts allow automated processes to authenticate with GCP. Select the default service account, identified by project_number-compute@developer.gserviceaccount.com.
- Under Vertica Management Console, choose the configuration for the virtual machine that will run the Management Console. The Vertica Analytics Platform in Cloud Launcher always deploys the Vertica Management Console (MC) as part of the solution.
  
  The default machine type for MC is sufficient for most deployments. You can choose another machine type that better suits any additional purposes, such serving as a target node for backups, data transformation, or additional management tools.
- Node count for Vertica Cluster: The total number of VMs you want to deploy in the Vertica Cluster. The default is 3.
  
  As mentioned above, the Cloud Launcher automatically deploys the Vertica Community Edition license, which limits the database to 3 nodes and up to 1 TB in raw data. Any additional nodes will be part of your database cluster, but will not be part of your database.
  
  If you intend to use the Community Edition license for your database, leave the setting at 3. Otherwise, you would add nodes that will sit idle and cost you money without being part of your database.
- Machine type for Vertica Cluster nodes: The Cloud Launcher builds each node in the cluster using the same machine type. Modify the machine type for your nodes based on the workloads you expect your database to handle. See Supported GCP Machine Types for more information.
- Data disk type: GCP offers two types of persistent disk storage: Standard and SSD. The costs associated with Standard are less, but the performance of SSD storage is much better. Vertica recommends you use SSD storage. For more information on Standard and SSD persistent disks, see Storage Options.
- Disk size in GB: Disk performance is directly tied to the disk size in GCP. The default value of 2000 GBs (2 TB) is the minimum disk size for SSD persistent disks that allows maximum throughput.
  
  If you select a smaller disk size, the throughput performance decreases. If you select a large disk size, the performance remains the same as the 2 TB option.
- Network: VMs in GCP must exist on a virtual private cloud (VPC). When you created your GCP account, a default VPC was created. Create additional VPCs to isolate solutions or projects from one another. The Vertica Analytics Plaform creates all the nodes in the same VPC.
- Subnetwork: Just as a GCP account may have multiple VPCs, each VPC may also have multiple subnets. Use additional subnets to group or isolate solutions within the same VPC.
- Firewall: If you want your MC to be accessible via the internet, check the Allow access to the Management Console from the Internet box. Vertica recommends you protect your MC using a firewall that restricts access to just the IP addresses of users that need to access it. You can enter one or more comma-separated CIDR address ranges.

After you have entered all the required information, click Deploy to begin the deployment process.

Monitor the Deployment

After the deployment begins, Google Cloud Launcher automatically opens the Deployment Manager page that displays the status of the deployment. Items that are still being processed have a spinning circle to the left of them and the text is a light gray color. Items that have been created are dark gray in color, with an icon designating that resource type on the left.

After the deployment completes, a green check mark appears next to the deployment name in the upper left-hand section of the screen.

Accessing the Cluster After Deployment

After the deployment completes, the right-hand section of the screen displays the following information:

dbadmin password: A randomly generated password for the dbadmin account on the nodes. For security reasons, change the dbadmin password when you first log in to one of the Vertica cluster nodes.
mcadmin password: A randomly generated password for the mcadmin account for accessing the Management Console. For security reasons, change the mcadmin password after you first log in to the MC.
Vertica Node 1 IP address: The external IP address for the first node in the Vertica cluster is exposed here so that you can connect to the VM using a standard SSH client. To access the MC, press the Access Vertica MC button in the Get Started section of the dialog box. Copy the mcadmin password and paste it when asked.

For more information on using the MC, see Using Management Console .

Access the Cluster Nodes

There are two ways to access the cluster nodes directly:

Use GCP's integrated SSH shell by selecting the SSH button in the Get Started section. This shell opens a pop-up in your browser that runs GCP's web-based SSH client. You are automatically logged on as the user you authenticated as in the GCP environment.

After you have access to the first Vertica cluster node, execute the su dbadmin command, and authenticate using the dbadmin password.
In addition, use other standard SSH clients to connect directly to the first Vertica cluster node. Use the Vertica Node 1 IP address listed on the screen as the dbadmin user, and authenticate with the dbadmin password.

Follow the on-screen directions to log in using the mcadmin account and accept the EULA. After you've been authenticated, access the initial database by clicking the vdb icon (looks like a green cylinder) in the Recent Databases section.

Using a Custom Service Account

In general, you should use the default service account created by the GCP deployment (project_number-compute@developer.gserviceaccount.com), but if you want to use a custom service account: