GCP for DevOps — Introduction Exercises

2 minute read

Practice Exercises — Introduction

Test your understanding of GCP fundamentals with these 5 hands-on exercises.

Exercise 1: Create and Configure a Project

Create a new GCP project, set it as your default, and enable the Compute Engine API.

Show Answer 
# Create the project
$ gcloud projects create devops-exercise-01 \
    --name="DevOps Exercise 01"

# Set it as default
$ gcloud config set project devops-exercise-01

# Link billing (use your billing account ID)
$ gcloud billing projects link devops-exercise-01 \
    --billing-account=0X0X0X-0X0X0X-0X0X0X

# Enable Compute Engine API
$ gcloud services enable compute.googleapis.com

# Verify
$ gcloud services list --enabled --filter="name:compute"

NAME
compute.googleapis.com

Exercise 2: Explore Regions and Zones

List all GCP regions, then find all zones in the europe-west1 region. Set europe-west1-b as your default zone.

Show Answer 
# List all regions
$ gcloud compute regions list --format="table(name,description)"

NAME                  DESCRIPTION
asia-east1            Changhua County, Taiwan
europe-west1          St. Ghislain, Belgium
us-central1           Council Bluffs, Iowa, USA
...

# List zones in europe-west1
$ gcloud compute zones list --filter="region:europe-west1"

NAME              REGION         STATUS
europe-west1-b    europe-west1   UP
europe-west1-c    europe-west1   UP
europe-west1-d    europe-west1   UP

# Set default zone
$ gcloud config set compute/zone europe-west1-b
$ gcloud config set compute/region europe-west1

# Verify
$ gcloud config list compute/

[compute]
region = europe-west1
zone = europe-west1-b

Exercise 3: Multiple Configurations

Create two gcloud configurations — one for “dev” and one for “prod” — with different default regions.

Show Answer 
# Create dev configuration
$ gcloud config configurations create dev-config
$ gcloud config set project devops-exercise-01
$ gcloud config set compute/region us-central1
$ gcloud config set compute/zone us-central1-a

# Create prod configuration
$ gcloud config configurations create prod-config
$ gcloud config set project devops-exercise-01
$ gcloud config set compute/region us-east1
$ gcloud config set compute/zone us-east1-b

# List configurations
$ gcloud config configurations list

NAME          IS_ACTIVE  ACCOUNT             PROJECT               DEFAULT_ZONE     DEFAULT_REGION
default       False      you@example.com     my-devops-lab         us-central1-a    us-central1
dev-config    False      you@example.com     devops-exercise-01    us-central1-a    us-central1
prod-config   True       you@example.com     devops-exercise-01    us-east1-b       us-east1

# Switch to dev
$ gcloud config configurations activate dev-config
Activated [dev-config].

Exercise 4: Enable Multiple APIs

Enable the following APIs in your project: Cloud Build, Cloud Run, Secret Manager, and Artifact Registry. Then list all enabled APIs.

Show Answer 
# Enable APIs
$ gcloud services enable \
    cloudbuild.googleapis.com \
    run.googleapis.com \
    secretmanager.googleapis.com \
    artifactregistry.googleapis.com

Operation "operations/abc123" finished successfully.

# List enabled APIs (filter for the ones we just enabled)
$ gcloud services list --enabled \
    --format="table(name)" \
    --filter="name:(cloudbuild OR run OR secretmanager OR artifactregistry)"

NAME
artifactregistry.googleapis.com
cloudbuild.googleapis.com
run.googleapis.com
secretmanager.googleapis.com

Exercise 5: Explore Project Details

Get detailed information about your project including the project number, creation time, and current IAM policy. Output the project number only.

Show Answer 
# Full project details
$ gcloud projects describe devops-exercise-01

createTime: '2026-03-30T07:00:00.000Z'
lifecycleState: ACTIVE
name: DevOps Exercise 01
parent:
  id: '123456789012'
  type: organization
projectId: devops-exercise-01
projectNumber: '345678901234'

# Project number only
$ gcloud projects describe devops-exercise-01 \
    --format="value(projectNumber)"

345678901234

# Get IAM policy
$ gcloud projects get-iam-policy devops-exercise-01 \
    --format="table(bindings.role,bindings.members)"

ROLE                    MEMBERS
roles/owner             user:you@example.com
roles/editor            serviceAccount:345678901234-compute@developer.gserviceaccount.com

Cleanup:

# Switch back to default configuration
$ gcloud config configurations activate default

# Delete the exercise project (optional)
$ gcloud projects delete devops-exercise-01 --quiet

Next Chapter → IAM & Security

Updated:

You may also enjoy