Connecting entities to Google Cloud Platform

Cortex connects to many third-party vendors whose system interfaces frequently change. As a result, integration behavior or configuration steps may shift without notice. If you encounter unexpected issues, check with your system administrator or refer to the vendor’s documentation for the most current information. Additionally, integration sync times vary and are subject to scheduling overrides and timing variance.

This article explains how to connect entities to GCP. For configuration instructions, see Configuring the integration for Google Cloud Platform. For instructions on using the integration, see Using the integration for Google Cloud Platform.

Connecting an entity to GCP

Cortex gives you two ways to connect entities to Google Cloud: automatically or manually. Automatic connections rely on Cortex importing your Google Cloud resources and matching labels to discover dependencies, so entities stay up to date with little upkeep. Manual connections let you define ownership, infrastructure resources, dependencies, and SLOs directly in the entity descriptor, giving you more control when automatic discovery doesn’t fit your setup. Most teams use a mix of both, depending on how consistently their Google Cloud resources are labeled.

Automatically importing Google Cloud resources

This feature doesn’t automatically import team entities. To import them, see Adding team entities to Cortex.

From the main sidebar, click your avatar in the bottom-left corner.
Select Settings.
From the Settings menu, locate the Workspace section, then expand Entities.
Select the General tab.
In the Entity settings section, toggle on Auto import from AWS, Azure, and/or Google Cloud.

Manually importing Google Cloud resources via entity descriptor

To explicitly connect an entity to GCP, add the x-cortex-infra block to the entity’s YAML, specifying the resource’s name, project ID, and type.

Field	Description	Required?
`resourceName`	Name of the GCP resource. For functions, use the format `location/function`.
`projectId`	The GCP project ID the resource belongs to
`resourceType`	The resource type, e.g. `function`, `storage`

Example

x-cortex-infra:
  Google Cloud:
    resources:
      - resourceName: us-central1/send-invoice
        projectId: cortex-production
        resourceType: function
      - resourceName: cortex-invoice-exports
        projectId: cortex-production
        resourceType: storage

Ownership and dependencies for Google Cloud entities

Syncing ownership from Google Groups

Cortex can use Google Groups as an ownership provider, automatically syncing group memberships so entity ownership always reflects your current mailing lists.

Cortex runs this ownership sync for Google teams every day at 9 a.m. UTC.

Cortex uses identity mappings to connect group members to Cortex users when they exist, and falls back to each member’s email address from Google otherwise. To compare ownership sources, see the Ownership sources reference. To assign a Google Group as an owner in your entity descriptor, use the group’s full email address:

Field	Description	Required?
`type`	Must be `group`
`name`	The full Google Group email address
`provider`	Must be `GOOGLE`
`description`	Free-text description of the owner

Example

x-cortex-owners:
  - type: group
    name: checkout-team@cortex.io
    provider: GOOGLE
    description: Owns the checkout service and its dependencies

Discovering dependencies automatically

By default, Cortex looks for a service label on your Google Cloud resources and matches its value against each entity’s Cortex tag to automatically map dependencies. If needed, you can customize the label key in Cortex. If you’d rather define these dependencies explicitly, add an x-cortex-dependency block to your entity descriptor:

Field	Description	Required?
`key`	The label key on the GCP resource to match against
`value`	The label value on the GCP resource to match against

Example

x-cortex-dependency:
  gcp:
    labels:
      - key: service
        value: checkout-service
      - key: env
        value: production

Connecting SLOs

Reference a Service Level Objective (SLO) from Google Cloud Observability by adding its project and service ID to the entity’s descriptor:

Field	Description	Required?
`projectId`	The GCP project ID the SLO belongs to
`serviceId`	The unique ID from the service’s page in Google Cloud Observability

Example

x-cortex-slos:
  gcp:
    - projectId: cortex-production
      serviceId: iLE2e4HvR_service-checkout
    - projectId: cortex-production
      serviceId: iLE2e4HvR_service-billing

Find the serviceId value as the Unique ID on the service page in Google Cloud Observability.

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Connecting entities to Google Cloud Platform

Connecting an entity to GCP

Automatically importing Google Cloud resources

Manually importing Google Cloud resources via entity descriptor

Ownership and dependencies for Google Cloud entities

Syncing ownership from Google Groups

Discovering dependencies automatically

Connecting SLOs

​Connecting an entity to GCP

​Automatically importing Google Cloud resources

​Manually importing Google Cloud resources via entity descriptor

​Ownership and dependencies for Google Cloud entities

​Syncing ownership from Google Groups

​Discovering dependencies automatically

​Connecting SLOs

Connecting an entity to GCP

Automatically importing Google Cloud resources

Manually importing Google Cloud resources via entity descriptor

Ownership and dependencies for Google Cloud entities

Syncing ownership from Google Groups

Discovering dependencies automatically

Connecting SLOs