Set up Palette with GCP

In this guide, you will learn how to set up Palette for use with your Google Cloud Platform (GCP) cloud account. These steps are required in order to authenticate Palette and allow it to deploy host clusters. The concepts you learn about in the Getting Started section are centered around a fictional case study company, Spacetastic Ltd.

🧑‍🚀 Back at Spacetastic HQ

The Spacetastic team decide to look for an external solution that can help them scale and manage their Kubernetes services. Partnering with a team of Kubernetes experts allows them to focus on expanding their astronomy education platform, instead of spending countless hours migrating and rehosting their services. They identify the following list of benefits that their new platform should provide.

• Simplified Kubernetes cluster deployment processes across cloud providers.
• Cluster maintenance and security patching across environments.
• Monitoring and observability of Kubernetes workloads.

"I have so many ideas for new features for our backlog." says Anya, Lead Astrophycist. "Our community of space explorers want to keep learning, so we shouldn't slow down our implementation cycle. We need to keep expanding our astronomy education product."

Kai nods knowingly. As a Platform Engineer, they agree with Anya's concerns. "I've done some research on Kubernetes orchestration solutions. It seems that Palette has all the capabilities we need to help us grow."

"I agree with both of you, but I want to review the developer experience in detail before we agree to implement a new solution in production." says Wren, whose main concern as Founding Engineer is to ensure development velocity does not decrease. "Let's reach out to Spectro Cloud to create an account. Then, we can make an informed decision after we complete their Getting Started tutorials."

Prerequisites

• A Palette account with tenant admin access.

• Sign up to a service account from GCP. The GCP account must have the required IAM permissions.

Enablement

Palette needs access to your GCP cloud account in order to create and manage GCP clusters and resources.

Add Cloud Account

1. Log in to Palette as Tenant admin.

2. Navigate to the left Main Menu and select Tenant Settings.

3. Select Cloud Accounts and click on Add GCP Account.

4. In the cloud account creation wizard, provide the following information:

   • Account Name: Custom name for the cloud account.

   • JSON Credentials: The JSON credentials object.

   
   
   info

   You can use the Upload button to upload the JSON file you downloaded from the GCP console.

5. Click the Validate button to validate the credentials.

6. When the credentials are validated, click on Confirm to save your changes.

Create a Palette API Key

Follow the steps below to create a Palette API key. This is required for the Cluster Management with Terraform tutorial.

1. Log in to Palette.

2. Click on the drop-down Menu at the top of the page and switch to the Tenant Admin scope.

3. Navigate to the left Main Menu and select Tenant Settings.

4. From the Tenant Settings Menu, click on Security and select API Keys.

5. Click on Add New API key.

6. Fill out the following input fields:

Input Field	Description
API Key Name	Assign a name to the API key.
Description	Provide a description for the API key.
User Name	Select the user to assign the API key.
Expiration Date	Select an expiration date from the available options. You can also specify a custom date by selecting Custom.

5. Click the Generate button.

6. Copy the API key and save it in a secure location, such as a password manager. Share the API key with the user you created the API key for.

warning

Ensure you save the API key in a secure location. You will not be able to view the API key again.

Validate

You can verify your account is added.

1. Log in to Palette.

2. From the left Main Menu, select Tenant Settings.

3. Next, on the Tenant Settings Menu, select Cloud Accounts.

4. The added cloud account is listed under GCP with all other available GCP cloud accounts.

Next Steps

Now that you set up Palette for use with Google Cloud, you can start deploying Kubernetes clusters to your GCP account. To learn how to get started with deploying Kubernetes clusters to GCP, we recommend that you continue to the Create a Cluster Profile tutorial to create a full cluster profile for your host cluster.

🧑‍🚀 Catch up with Spacetastic

After following the detailed Palette setup instructions, the Spacetastic team have added their cloud accounts on the Palette dashboard. They are ready to learn about Palette.

"The Spectro Cloud team has provided our Palette accounts," says Kai. "I have followed their setup guide and have added our cloud accounts. I can already tell at a first glance that they offer many Kubernetes customization features."

Wren joins Kai in looking at the Palette dashboard. "I'm interested to learn more, but I never believe in magic solutions. We should review their Getting Started material in detail to ensure that Palette is a good fit for us."