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Networking Fundamentals on Google Cloud: Challenge Lab

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Networking Fundamentals on Google Cloud: Challenge Lab

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Overview

In a challenge lab you’re given a scenario and a set of tasks. Instead of following step-by-step instructions, you will use the skills learned from the labs in the course to figure out how to complete the tasks on your own! An automated scoring system (shown on this page) will provide feedback on whether you have completed your tasks correctly.

When you take a challenge lab, you will not be taught new Google Cloud concepts. You are expected to extend your learned skills, like changing default values and reading and researching error messages to fix your own mistakes.

To score 100% you must successfully complete all tasks within the time period!

Setup and requirements

Before you click the Start Lab button

Read these instructions. Labs are timed and you cannot pause them. The timer, which starts when you click Start Lab, shows how long Google Cloud resources will be made available to you.

This hands-on lab lets you do the lab activities yourself in a real cloud environment, not in a simulation or demo environment. It does so by giving you new, temporary credentials that you use to sign in and access Google Cloud for the duration of the lab.

To complete this lab, you need:

  • Access to a standard internet browser (Chrome browser recommended).
Note: Use an Incognito or private browser window to run this lab. This prevents any conflicts between your personal account and the Student account, which may cause extra charges incurred to your personal account.
  • Time to complete the lab---remember, once you start, you cannot pause a lab.
Note: If you already have your own personal Google Cloud account or project, do not use it for this lab to avoid extra charges to your account.

Challenge scenario

You are a junior cloud engineer working as part of a team of cloud engineers that are assigned to provide network functionality to Compute Engine virtual machine (VM) instances on a Google Cloud Virtual Private Cloud (VPC) network.

Because you cannot create VM instances, containers, or App Engine applications without a VPC network, each Google Cloud project has a default network configured to get you started.

To support load balancing for the network traffic, you need to know the difference between a network load balancer and an HTTP load balancer and how to configure both for your applications running on Compute Engine VMs.

You are expected to have the skills and knowledge to complete the tasks that follow.

Your challenge

In this lab, you are asked to create an auto-mode VPC network with firewall rules and three VM instances. Then, you need to configure load balancing to explore the connectivity for the VM instances.

You need to:

  • Create multiple web server instances with firewall rules.
  • Configure a load balancing service.
  • Create an HTTP load balancer.

Some standards you should follow:

  • Create all resources in the region and zone, unless otherwise directed.

Each task is described in detail below, good luck!

Task 1. Create multiple web server instances

For this task, you need to create three Compute Engine VM instances using the configuration that follows, install Apache on them, and then add a firewall rule that allows HTTP traffic to reach the instances.

Note: Make sure all the instances are under the default network.

  1. Set the following values, leaving all others at their defaults:

    Property Value (type value or select option as specified)
    VM Instance -1 web1
    VM Instance -2 web2
    VM Instance -3 web3
    Region
    Zone
    Series E2
    Machine type e2-small
    Tags network-lb-tag
    image-family debian-11
    image-project debian-cloud

  2. Use the following script for installing Apache on each server (updating web to match the VM name):

    '#!/bin/bash apt-get update apt-get install apache2 -y service apache2 restart echo "

    Web Server: web

    " | tee /var/www/html/index.html'
Note: You can verify that each instance is running with curl, replacing [IP_ADDRESS] with the IP address for each of your VMs:

curl http://[IP_ADDRESS]

Click Check my progress to verify the objective. Create multiple web server instances

Task 2. Configure the load balancing service

For this task, you need to create the resources that support the load balancing service.

  1. Set the following values, leaving all others at their defaults:

    Property Value (type value or select option as specified)
    Static external IP network-lb-ip-1
    Target-pool www-pool
    Ports 80

  2. Once the load balancing service is configured, start sending traffic to the forwarding rule and watch the traffic be dispersed to different instances.

    Click Check my progress to verify the objective. Configure the load balancing service

Task 3. Create an HTTP load balancer

For this task, you need to create resources for the HTTP load balancer.

  1. Set the values as follows, leaving all others at their defaults:

    Property Value (type value or select option as specified)
    Backend Template lb-backend-template
    tags allow-health-check
    Managed instance group lb-backend-group
    machine-type e2-medium
    image-family and image-project same as previously created VMs
    fw-allow-health-check fw-allow-health-check
    Allow source-ranges 130.211.0.0/22, 35.191.0.0/16
    Traffic ingress
    Port 80
    external IP address lb-ipv4-1
    health check http-basic-check
    URL map web-map-http
    Target http proxy http-lb-proxy

    Click Check my progress to verify the objective. Create an HTTP load balancer

Test traffic sent to the instances

  1. In the Cloud Console, from the Navigation menu, go to Network services > Load balancing.

  2. Click on the load balancer that you just created (web-map-http).

  3. To verify that the VMs are available, test the load balancer using a web browser. Navigate to http://IP_ADDRESS/ and replacing IP_ADDRESS with the load balancer's IP address (for example, 35.241.29.40).

Note: This may take three to five minutes.

If you do not connect, wait a few minutes, and then reload the browser.

Your browser should render a page with content showing the name of the instance that served the page (for example, Page served from: lb-backend-group-xxxx).

Congratulations!

Networking Fundamentals on Google Cloud badge

You have successfully set up a VPC consisting of three VMs, configured a load balancer, and practiced testing the network traffic.

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Manual Last Updated June 8, 2023

Lab Last Tested June 8, 2023

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