Console

1. In the Google Cloud console, go to the Spanner Instances page.

2. Click Create instance.

   Go to Create instance

3. In the Select an edition section, select a Spanner edition.

   If you want to compare the specifications between the different editions, then click Compare editions. For more information, see the Spanner editions overview.

4. Click Continue.

5. In the Name your instance section, enter an Instance name to display in the Google Cloud console. The instance name must be unique within your Google Cloud project.

6. Enter an Instance ID to permanently identify your instance. The instance ID must also be unique within your Google Cloud project. You can't change the instance ID later.

7. Click Continue.

8. In the Configure your instance section, under Choose a configuration, select Regional, Dual-region, or Multi-region.

9. Select a configuration location from the drop-down.

10. Optional: To add a read-only replica to a Spanner base configuration, first create a custom instance configuration using the Google Cloud CLI. Adding optional read-only replicas to a base configuration is available in the Enterprise edition and Enterprise Plus edition.

11. Click Continue.

12. In the Allocate compute capacity section, under Select unit, click one of the following:

    • Nodes for large instances. A node is 1000 processing units.
    • Processing units for small instances.

    For more information, see Compute capacity, nodes and processing units.

13. Under Choose a scaling mode, click one of the following:

    • Manual allocation if you want to manually set compute capacity for fixed compute resources and costs.

      • Quantity indicates the number of processing units or nodes to use for this instance.

    • Autoscaling to let Spanner automatically add and remove compute capacity. Managed autoscaler is available in the Spanner Enterprise edition and Enterprise Plus edition. For more information about the managed autoscaler, see Managed autoscaler for Spanner. Configure the following managed autoscaler options:

      • Minimum indicates the minimum limit to scale down to, depending on the measurement unit that you choose for Compute capacity. For more information, see Determine the minimum limit.
      • Maximum indicates the maximum limit to scale up to, depending on the measurement unit that you choose for Compute capacity. For more information, see Determine the maximum limit.
      • High priority CPU utilization target indicates the target percentage of high priority CPU to use. For more information, see Determine the CPU utilization target.
      • Storage utilization target indicates the target percentage of storage to use. For more information, see Determine the Storage Utilization Target.

14. Optional: If you select Autoscaling as the scaling mode, you can click the Show asymmetric autoscaling options dropdown to autoscale your read-only replicas independently from other replicas. For more information, see Asymmetric read-only autoscaling.

    1. Select the read-only replica you want to asymmetrically autoscale.

    2. Configure the following asymmetric autoscaler options:

       • Minimum indicates the minimum limit to scale down to, depending on the measurement unit that you choose for Compute capacity. For more information, see Determine the minimum limit.
       • Maximum indicates the maximum limit to scale up to, depending on the measurement unit that you choose for Compute capacity. For more information, see Determine the maximum limit.
       • High priority CPU utilization target indicates the target percentage of high priority CPU to use. For more information, see Determine the CPU utilization target.

15. Under Backups, the Enable default backup schedules checkbox is checked by default. To disable default backup schedules, uncheck the checkbox. When enabled, all new databases in the instance have full backups created every 24 hours. These backups are retained for 7 days. You can edit or delete the default backup schedules at any time. For more information, see Default backup schedules.

16. Click Create to create the instance.

gcloud

Use the gcloud spanner instances create command to create an instance. Specify the compute capacity as the number of nodes or processing units that you want on the instance.

gcloud spanner instances create INSTANCE_ID \
--edition=EDITION \
--config=INSTANCE_CONFIG \
--description=INSTANCE_DESCRIPTION \
--default-backup-schedule-type=DEFAULT_BACKUP_SCHEDULE_TYPE \
--nodes=NODE_COUNT

or

gcloud spanner instances create INSTANCE_ID \
--edition=EDITION \
--config=INSTANCE_CONFIG \
--description=INSTANCE_DESCRIPTION \
--default-backup-schedule-type=DEFAULT_BACKUP_SCHEDULE_TYPE \
--processing-units=PROCESSING_UNIT_COUNT

Replace the following:

• INSTANCE-ID: a permanent identifier that is unique within your Google Cloud project. You can't change the instance ID later.
• INSTANCE-CONFIG: a permanent identifier of your instance configuration, which defines the geographic location of the instance and affects how data is replicated. For custom instance configurations, it starts with custom-. For more information, see instance configurations.
• INSTANCE_DESCRIPTION: the name to display for the instance in the Google Cloud console. The instance name must be unique within your Google Cloud project.

• DEFAULT_BACKUP_SCHEDULE_TYPE: the default backup schedule type that is used in the instance. Must be one of the following values:

  • AUTOMATIC: a default backup schedule is created automatically when a new database is created in the instance. The default backup schedule creates a full backup every 24 hours. These full backups are retained for 7 days. You can edit or delete the default backup schedule once it's created.
  • NONE: a default backup schedule isn't created automatically when a new database is created in the instance.

• NODE-COUNT: the compute capacity of the instance, expressed as a number of nodes. Each node equals 1000 processing units.

• PROCESSING_UNIT_COUNT: the compute capacity of the instance, expressed as a number of processing units. Enter quantities up to 1000 in multiples of 100 (100, 200, 300 and so on) and enter greater quantities in multiples of 1000 (1000, 2000, 3000 and so on). Note: Don't use this parameter if you're creating an instance that you intend to enable with the managed autoscaler later.

Add managed autoscaling

You can also create Enterprise edition and Enterprise Plus edition instances to use managed autoscaling with the gcloud spanner instances create command. For more information, see Managed autoscaler for Spanner.

Use the following command to create an instance with managed autoscaler.

  gcloud spanner instances create INSTANCE_ID \
    --edition=EDITION \
    --config=INSTANCE_CONFIG \
    --description=INSTANCE_DESCRIPTION \
    --autoscaling-min-processing-units=MINIMUM_PROCESSING_UNITS \
    --autoscaling-max-processing-units=MAXIMUM_PROCESSING_UNITS \
    --autoscaling-high-priority-cpu-target=CPU_PERCENTAGE \
    --autoscaling-storage-target=STORAGE_PERCENTAGE \
    [--asymmetric-autoscaling-option \
       location=ASYMMETRIC_AUTOSCALING_LOCATION,min_nodes=ASYMMETRIC_AUTOSCALING_MIN,\
       max_nodes=ASYMMETRIC_AUTOSCALING_MAX,high_priority_cpu_target=ASYMMETRIC_CPU_TARGET]

or

  gcloud spanner instances create INSTANCE_ID \
    --edition=EDITION \
    --config=INSTANCE_CONFIG \
    --description=INSTANCE_DESCRIPTION \
    --autoscaling-min-nodes=MINIMUM_NODES \
    --autoscaling-max-nodes=MAXIMUM_NODES \
    --autoscaling-high-priority-cpu-target=CPU_PERCENTAGE \
    --autoscaling-storage-target=STORAGE_PERCENTAGE \
    [--asymmetric-autoscaling-option \
       location=ASYMMETRIC_AUTOSCALING_LOCATION,min_nodes=ASYMMETRIC_AUTOSCALING_MIN,\
       max_nodes=ASYMMETRIC_AUTOSCALING_MAX,high_priority_cpu_target=ASYMMETRIC_CPU_TARGET]

Replace the following:

• INSTANCE-ID: a permanent identifier that is unique within your Google Cloud project. You can't change the instance ID later.
• INSTANCE-CONFIG: a permanent identifier of your instance configuration, which defines the geographic location of the instance and affects how data is replicated. For custom instance configurations, it starts with custom-. For more information, see instance configurations.
• INSTANCE-DESCRIPTION: the name to display for the instance in the Google Cloud console. The instance name must be unique within your Google Cloud project.
• MINIMUM_PROCESSING_UNITS, MINIMUM_NODES: the minimum number of processing units or nodes when scaling down. For more information, see Determine the minimum limit.
• MAXIMUM_PROCESSING_UNITS, MAXIMUM_NODES: the maximum number of processing units or nodes when scaling up. For more information, see Determine the maximum limit.
• CPU_PERCENTAGE: the target percentage of high priority CPU to use, from 10 to 90%. If you're optimizing for cost, then use a higher percentage. For more information, see Determine the CPU utilization target.
• STORAGE_PERCENTAGE: the target percentage of storage to use, from 10 to 99%. For more information, see Determine the storage utilization target.

Optional flags:

• --asymmetric-autoscaling-option: use this flag to enable asymmetric autoscaling. Replace the following parameters:

  • ASYMMETRIC_AUTOSCALING_LOCATION: if the flag is used, then this parameter is required. The location of the read-only region that you want to scale asymmetrically.
  • ASYMMETRIC_AUTOSCALING_MIN: optional parameter. The minimum number of nodes when scaling down.
  • ASYMMETRIC_AUTOSCALING_MAX: optional parameter. The maximum number of nodes when scaling up.
  • ASYMMETRIC_CPU_TARGET: optional parameter. The target percentage of high priority CPU to use, from 10 to 90%. If you're optimizing for cost, then use a higher percentage.

Examples for using custom configurations

To create an instance test-instance in the base regional instance configuration us-central1, run:

gcloud spanner instances create test-instance --edition=STANDARD --config=regional-us-central1 \
  --description="Test Instance" --nodes=1

To create an instance custom-eur6-instance in the custom multi-region instance configuration custom-eur6, first create a custom instance configuration.

Then, run:

  gcloud spanner instances create custom-eur6-instance --edition=ENTERPRISE_PLUS --config=custom-eur6 \
      --description="Instance with custom read-only" --nodes=1

You should see a message similar to the following example after running either one of the previous commands:

Creating instance...done.

C++

C#

Create an instance without a default backup schedule

Go

Create an instance with managed autoscaling using Go

Create an instance with asymmetric read-only autoscaling using Go

Create an instance without a default backup schedule

Java

Create an instance with managed autoscaling using Java

Create an instance with asymmetric read-only autoscaling using Java

Create an instance without a default backup schedule

Node.js

Create an instance with managed autoscaling using Node.js

Create an instance without a default backup schedule

PHP

Python

Create an instance with managed autoscaling using Python

Create an instance without a default backup schedule

Ruby

Console

Go to the Spanner Instances page in the Google Cloud console.

Go to the Instances page

The Google Cloud console shows a list of your Spanner instances, along with each instance's ID, display name, configuration, and compute capacity expressed in both processing units and in nodes.

gcloud

Use the gcloud spanner instances list command:

gcloud spanner instances list

The gcloud CLI prints a list of your Spanner instances, along with each instance's ID, display name, configuration, and compute capacity.

Console

1. Go to the Spanner Instances page in the Google Cloud console.

   Go to the Instances page

2. Click the name of the instance that you want to upgrade.

3. Click Upgrade next to the edition type.

4. In the Edition instance page, and under Update edition, select the new higher-tier edition for your instance.

5. Click Save.

gcloud

Use the gcloud spanner instances update command to upgrade your instance's edition:

gcloud spanner instances update INSTANCE_ID --edition=EDITION \
[--async]

Replace the following:

• INSTANCE_ID: the permanent identifier for the instance.
• EDITION: specify the new higher-tier edition for your instance. For more information, see the Spanner editions overview.

Optional flags:

• --async: Use this flag if you want your request to return immediately, without waiting for the operation in progress to complete. You can check the status of your request by running gcloud spanner operations describe.

Go

Java

Node.js

Python

Console

1. Go to the Spanner Instances page in the Google Cloud console.

   Go to the Instances page

2. Click the name of the instance that you want to rename.

3. Click Edit instance.

4. Enter a new instance name. This name must be unique within the Google Cloud project.

5. Click Save.

gcloud

Use the gcloud spanner instances update command:

gcloud spanner instances update INSTANCE_ID --description=INSTANCE_NAME

Replace the following:

• INSTANCE_ID: the permanent identifier for the instance.
• INSTANCE_NAME: the name to display for the instance in the Google Cloud console. The instance name must be unique within your Google Cloud project.

Console

1. Go to the Spanner Instances page in the Google Cloud console.

   Go to the Instances page

2. Click the name of the instance that you want to change.

3. Click Edit Instance.

4. Change the compute capacity by choosing the measurement units (processing units or nodes) and then entering a quantity. When using processing units, enter quantities up to 1000 in multiples of 100 (100, 200, 300 and so on) and enter greater quantities in multiples of 1000 (1000, 2000, 3000 and so on). Each node equals 1000 processing units.

5. Click Save.

If you see a dialog that says you have insufficient quota to add compute capacity in this location, follow the instructions to request a higher quota.

gcloud

Use the gcloud spanner instances update command. When using this command, specify the compute capacity as a number of nodes or processing units.

gcloud spanner instances update INSTANCE_ID --nodes=NODE_COUNT
[--async]

or

gcloud spanner instances update INSTANCE_ID
--processing-units=PROCESSING_UNIT_COUNT [--async]

Replace the following:

• INSTANCE_ID: the permanent identifier for the instance.
• NODE_COUNT: the compute capacity of the instance, expressed as a number of nodes. Each node equals 1000 processing units.
• PROCESSING_UNIT_COUNT: the compute capacity of the instance, expressed as a number of processing units. Enter quantities up to 1000 in multiples of 100 (100, 200, 300 and so on) and enter greater quantities in multiples of 1000 (1000, 2000, 3000 and so on).

Optional flags:

• --async: Use this flag if you want your request to return immediately, without waiting for the operation in progress to complete. You can check the status of your request by running gcloud spanner operations describe.

Console

1. Go to the Spanner Instances page in the Google Cloud console.

   Go to the Instances page

2. Click the name of the instance that you want to enable the managed autoscaler on.

3. Click Edit instance.

4. Under Configure compute capacity, click Autoscaling.

5. For Minimum, select the minimum limit to use when scaling down. For more information, see Determine the minimum limit.

6. For Maximum, select the maximum limit to use when scaling up. For more information, see Determine the maximum limit.

7. For High priority CPU utilization target, select the percentage of high priority CPU to use. For more information, see Determine the CPU utilization target.

8. For Storage utilization target, select the percentage of storage to use. For more information, see Determine the storage utilization target.

9. Optional: If you select Autoscaling as the scaling mode, then you can click the Show asymmetric autoscaling options dropdown to autoscale your read-only replicas independently from other replicas.

   1. Select the read-only replica you want to asymmetrically autoscale.

   2. Configure the following autoscaler options:

      • Minimum indicates the minimum limit to scale down to, depending on the measurement unit that you choose for Compute capacity. For more information, see Determine the minimum limit.
      • Maximum indicates the maximum limit to scale up to, depending on the measurement unit that you choose for Compute capacity. For more information, see Determine the maximum limit.
      • High priority CPU utilization target indicates the target percentage of high priority CPU to use. For more information, see Determine the CPU utilization target.

10. Click Save.

gcloud

Use the gcloud spanner instances update command to add the managed autoscaler to an instance. For more information and limitations, see Google Cloud CLI flags and limitations.

You can add the managed autoscaler with the following command:

  gcloud spanner instances update INSTANCE_ID \
    --autoscaling-min-processing-units=MINIMUM_PROCESSING_UNITS \
    --autoscaling-max-processing-units=MAXIMUM_PROCESSING_UNITS \
    --autoscaling-high-priority-cpu-target=CPU_PERCENTAGE \
    --autoscaling-storage-target=STORAGE_PERCENTAGE \
    [--asymmetric-autoscaling-option \
       location=ASYMMETRIC_AUTOSCALING_LOCATION,min_nodes=ASYMMETRIC_AUTOSCALING_MIN,\
       max_nodes=ASYMMETRIC_AUTOSCALING_MAX,high_priority_cpu_target=ASYMMETRIC_CPU_TARGET]

or

  gcloud spanner instances update INSTANCE_ID \
    --autoscaling-min-processing-units=MINIMUM_NODES \
    --autoscaling-max-processing-units=MAXIMUM_NODES \
    --autoscaling-high-priority-cpu-target=CPU_PERCENTAGE \
    --autoscaling-storage-target=STORAGE_PERCENTAGE \
    [--asymmetric-autoscaling-option \
       location=ASYMMETRIC_AUTOSCALING_LOCATION,min_nodes=ASYMMETRIC_AUTOSCALING_MIN,\
       max_nodes=ASYMMETRIC_AUTOSCALING_MAX,high_priority_cpu_target=ASYMMETRIC_CPU_TARGET]

Replace the following:

• INSTANCE_ID: the permanent identifier for the instance.
• MINIMUM_PROCESSING_UNITS, MINIMUM_NODES: the minimum number of processing units or nodes to use when scaling down. For more information, see Determine the minimum limit.
• MAXIMUM_PROCESSING_UNITS, MAXIMUM_NODES: the maximum number of processing units or nodes to use when scaling up. For more information, see Determine the maximum limit.
• CPU_PERCENTAGE: the target percentage of high priority CPU to use, from 10% to 90%. If you're optimizing for cost and don't require low latency on all requests, then use a higher percentage. For more information, see Determine the CPU utilization target.
• STORAGE_PERCENTAGE: the target percentage of storage to use, from 10% to 99%. For more information, see Determine the Storage Utilization Target.

Optional flags:

• --asymmetric-autoscaling-option: Use this flag to enable asymmetric autoscaling. Replace the following parameters:

  • ASYMMETRIC_AUTOSCALING_LOCATION: if the flag is used, then this parameter is required. The location of the read-only region that you want to scale asymmetrically.
  • ASYMMETRIC_AUTOSCALING_MIN: optional parameter. The minimum number of nodes when scaling down.
  • ASYMMETRIC_AUTOSCALING_MAX: optional parameter. The maximum number of nodes when scaling up.
  • ASYMMETRIC_CPU_TARGET: optional parameter. The target percentage of high priority CPU to use, from 10 to 90%. If you're optimizing for cost, then use a higher percentage.

After you add the managed autoscaler to an instance, you can also modify the managed autoscaler settings. For example, if you want to increase the maximum number of processing units to 10000, run the following command:

gcloud spanner instances update test-instance \
     --autoscaling-max-processing-units=10000

Console

1. Go to the Spanner Instances page in the Google Cloud console.

   Go to the Instances page

2. Click the name of the instance that you want to disable managed autoscaler on.

3. Under Choose a scaling mode, click Manual allocation.

4. Click Save.

gcloud

Use the gcloud spanner instances update command to update the instance.

Use the following command to change an instance from using the managed autoscaler to manual scaling:

  gcloud spanner instances update INSTANCE_ID \
  --processing-units=PROCESSING_UNIT_COUNT

or

  gcloud spanner instances update INSTANCE_ID \
  --nodes=NODE_COUNT

Replace the following:

• INSTANCE_ID: the permanent identifier for the instance.
• NODE_COUNT: the compute capacity of the instance, expressed as a number of nodes. Each node equals 1000 processing units.
• PROCESSING_UNIT_COUNT: the compute capacity of the instance, expressed as a number of processing units. Enter quantities up to 1000 in multiples of 100 (100, 200, 300 and so on) and enter greater quantities in multiples of 1000 (1000, 2000, 3000 and so on).

Console

1. Go to the Spanner Instances page in the Google Cloud console.

   Go to the Instances page

2. Click the name of the instance that you want to edit the default backup schedule.

3. Click Edit instance.

4. Under Backups, the Enable default backup schedules checkbox determines whether default backup schedules are enabled or not. When enabled, all new databases in this instance have a default backup schedule created.

5. Click Save.

gcloud

Use the gcloud spanner instances update command to edit the default backup schedules type.

You can edit the default backup schedule type by running the following command:

  gcloud spanner instances update INSTANCE_ID \
    --default-backup-schedule-type=DEFAULT_BACKUP_SCHEDULE_TYPE

Replace the following:

• INSTANCE_ID: the permanent identifier for the instance.

• DEFAULT_BACKUP_SCHEDULE_TYPE: the default backup schedule type that is used in the instance. Must be one of the following values:

  • AUTOMATIC: a default backup schedule is created automatically when a new database is created in the instance. The default backup schedule creates a full backup every 24 hours. These full backups are retained for 7 days. You can edit or delete the default backup schedule once it's created.
  • NONE: a default backup schedule isn't created automatically when a new database is created in the instance.

C#

Go

Java

Node.js

Python

Console

1. Go to the Spanner Instances page in the Google Cloud console.

   Go to the Instances page

2. Click the name of the instance that you want to delete.

3. Click Delete instance.

4. Follow the instructions to confirm that you want to delete the instance.

5. Click Delete.

gcloud

Use the gcloud spanner instances delete command, replacing INSTANCE_ID with the instance ID:

gcloud spanner instances delete INSTANCE_ID