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Prerequisites

1. You are an admin in GCP (for steps 2 and 3).
2. You are an Account Owner (for steps 1 and 4).

This guide outlines how to setup a Data Store for storing troubleshooting (sampling) and temporary data in your GCP cloud.

Steps

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Prefer Automation with Infrastructure as Code (IaC)?

See the details here to help automate and manage resources from steps 2 and 3 using Terraform.

1. Provision the Data Store in Monte Carlo

Before creating any GCP resources, register the data store in Monte Carlo. The backend records the registration. The data store remains disabled until you complete registration in step 4 once the GCS bucket and service account are deployed.

UI

Navigate to settings/deployments and click Add. Choose the "GCP" Platform and "Data store" type, supply a deployment name, then click Provision. Monte Carlo creates the data store and routes you to the Edit page, where you'll complete registration in step 4.

CLI

The CLI registers a GCS data store in a single command — there's no separate provision step. After creating the bucket and service account in steps 2 and 3, you'll run register-gcs-store once in step 4 with the bucket name and service account key file.

2. Create a GCS Bucket

Use the GCP Console, CLI or favorite IaC tool to create a new GCS Bucket in your GCP account with no public access. Note that registration (step 4) will fail if the bucket is publicly accessible.

We strongly recommend you do not use an existing bucket or share with other jobs as Monte Carlo might overwrite existing data. And we also recommend the following settings:

• Google-managed encryption
• Expiration lifecycles. 90 days or less for all objects in the following prefixes:

custom-sql-output-samples/
rca
idempotent

3. Create an IAM Role and Service Account

First, create a role in the same project as above:

1. Under IAM & Admin, go to the Roles section in your Google Cloud Platform console.
2. Click the "Create Role" button at the top of the tab.
3. Give the new role a name. We recommend "Monte Carlo Data Store".
4. Change the Role launch stage to "General Availability".
5. Click "Add Permissions" and add the permissions specified below and select "Create".

storage.objects.create
storage.objects.delete
storage.objects.get
storage.objects.list
storage.objects.update
storage.buckets.get
storage.buckets.getIamPolicy

Now, create a service account in the same project as above:

1. Under IAM & Admin, go to the Service Accounts section in your Google Cloud Platform console.
2. Click the "Create Service Account" button at the top of the tab.
3. Give the account a name and continue. We recommend "monte-carlo-data-store-sa".
4. Click "Done" to complete the creation of Monte Carlo's service account.
5. Then navigate to the service account you just created and create a JSON key. A JSON file will download – please keep it safe.

Finally, add the role and principal to the bucket you created above:

1. Under Cloud Storage, select the bucket you created in step 2 and navigate to the Permissions tab.
2. Select "Grant Access" and fill in the service account you just created as the principal and role you just created as the role. Save changes.

4. Complete Registration

After creating the bucket and service account, complete registration by supplying the bucket name and service account key file. Monte Carlo auto-enables the data store on successful completion.

After this step is complete, all integrations that you add to this deployment will automatically use this bucket for storing troubleshooting and temporary data. You can add these integrations as you normally would using Monte Carlo's UI wizard or CLI.

UI

1. Open the data store's Edit page (Monte Carlo will have routed you there after step 1; you can also navigate from settings/deployments).
2. Fill in the Bucket name (created in step 2) and Select credentials JSON (service account key from step 3), then click Enable. Monte Carlo validates the configuration and enables the data store.

CLI

Register the data store with the bucket name from step 2 and the service account key file from step 3:

montecarlo agents register-gcs-store \
  --bucket-name <name> \
  --key-file <path-to-service-account.json>

For reference on this command please see here. And see here for how to install and configure the CLI.

FAQs

Can I deploy resources as code?

Absolutely! This config can be used to automate steps 2 and 3 and manage resources as code with Terraform (source).

If you wish to use it, you can download, review, and then deploy it in your GCP account. Afterwards, please continue with step 4 to register your data store.

Note that this will persist a key in the remote state used by Terraform. Please take appropriate measures to protect your remote state.

Can I further constraint access to this Data Store (GCS Bucket)?

Absolutely! By default this is done via the service account key, but if you prefer you can further restrict requests via an IP allowlist. For instance you can:

1. Please refer to the documentation for the list of IP addresses that need to be allowlisted for your platform version.
2. Create a new GCP Project for Monte Carlo. We recommend you do not share this project.
3. Create a GCS bucket and Role with Service Account in the project created in step #2. You can do this by following the steps here or via this automation.
4. Create an Access Level (e.g. via the Access Context Manager) to include the IP address from step #1 and any other IP addresses or members you'd want to be able to administer or access this project.
5. Create a Service Perimeter with the Access Level from step #4 and the "Cloud Storage" service. If you prefer you can first create this in "Dry run" mode to validate.
6. Continue with registration.

For more information on connectivity, please refer to our Network Connectivity documentation.

How do I check the reachability between Monte Carlo and the Data Store?

Reachability is automatically validated during registration, but you can also use this CLI command or "test" button on the UI to test anytime.