This page walks you through the process of creating a CockroachDB Dedicated cluster using the Cloud Console. To use the Cloud API instead, refer to Create a New Cluster.
Only CockroachDB Cloud Org Administrators or users with Cluster Creator / Cluster Admin roles assigned at organization scope can create clusters. If you need to create a cluster and do not have one of the required roles, contact your CockroachDB Cloud Administrator.
To create and connect to a 30-day free CockroachDB Dedicated cluster and run your first query, see the Quickstart.
Step 1. Start the cluster creation process
If you haven't already, sign up for a CockroachDB Cloud account.
Note:We recommend that CockroachDB Cloud Console users log in with Single Sign-On (SSO), optionally with two-factor authentication (2FA) enabled for the SSO provider. This prevents potential attackers from using stolen credentials to access or tamper with your critical data.CockroachDB Cloud Basic SSO supports SSO with GitHub, Google, and Microsoft. Cloud Organization SSO provides additional configuration and flexibility, and includes support for OIDC or SAML protocols, autoprovisioning, and limiting the email domains that can use a given authentication method.
Visit your CockroachDB Cloud Console's account settings page and switch to SSO to improve the security of your cluster.
Log in to your CockroachDB Cloud account.
If there are multiple organizations in your account, select the correct organization in the top right corner.
On the Overview page, click Create Cluster.
On the Select a plan page, select the Dedicated standard or Dedicated advanced plan.
CockroachDB Dedicated advanced clusters have access to features required for PCI DSS readiness in addition to all CockroachDB Dedicated standard features. You must be a contract customer to create a CockroachDB Dedicated advanced cluster. For more information, contact us.
Step 2. Select the cloud provider
On the Cloud & Regions page, in the Cloud provider section, select your deployment environment: Google Cloud, AWS, or Microsoft Azure.
CockroachDB Dedicated advanced clusters cannot currently be deployed on Azure.
You do not need an account in the deployment environment you choose. The cluster is created on infrastructure managed by Cockroach Labs. If you intend to use your CockroachDB Dedicated cluster with data or services in a cloud tenant, you should select that cloud provider and the region closest to your existing cloud services to maximize performance.
Pricing depends on your cloud provider and region selections. Refer to Pricing for details.
Step 3. Configure region(s) and node(s)
Select the region(s) and number of nodes for your cluster:
In the Regions section, select at minimum one region. Refer to CockroachDB Cloud Regions for the regions where CockroachDB Dedicated clusters can be deployed. For optimal performance, select the cloud provider region in which you are running your application. For example, if your application is deployed in GCP's
us-east1region, selectus-east1for your CockroachDB Dedicated cluster.A multi-region cluster contains at minimum three regions and can survive the loss of a single region. Refer to Planning your cluster for the configuration requirements and recommendations for CockroachDB Dedicated clusters.
Select the number of nodes:
- For single-region application development and testing on AWS or GCP, you can create a single-node cluster. Single-node clusters are not available on Azure.
- For single-region production deployments, we recommend a minimum of 3 nodes. The number of nodes also depends on your storage capacity and performance requirements. See Example for further guidance.
- For multi-region deployments, we require a minimum of 3 nodes per region. For best performance and stability, you should use the same number of nodes in each region.
See Plan a CockroachDB Cloud cluster for the requirements and recommendations for CockroachDB Dedicated cluster configuration.
CockroachDB Cloud does not support scaling a multi-node cluster down to a single node.
Currently, you can add a maximum of 150 nodes to your cluster. For larger configurations, contact us.
Click Next: Capacity.
Step 4. Enable GCP VPC Peering (optional)
You can use GCP VPC peering to establish a private connection between a GCP application and a CockroachDB Dedicated cluster deployed on GCP. A separate VPC Peering connection is required for each cluster.
If you don't want to enable VPC Peering, leave the default selection of Use the default IP range as is and click Next: Capacity.
You can set up GCP Private Service Connect (Preview) instead of VPC peering after creating your cluster.
You can use CockroachDB Cloud's default IP range and size (172.28.0.0/14) as long as it doesn't overlap with the IP ranges in your network. Alternatively, you can configure the IP range:
In the VPC Peering section, select Configure the IP range to configure your own IP range.
Enter the IP range and size (in CIDR format) for the CockroachDB Cloud network based on the following considerations:
- As per GCP's overlapping subnets restriction, configure an IP range that doesn't overlap with the IP ranges in your application network.
The IP range and size cannot be changed after the cluster is created. Configuring a smaller IP range size may limit your ability to expand into multiple regions in the future. We recommend configuring an IP range size of
/16or lower.Note:Custom IP ranges are temporarily unavailable for multi-region clusters.
Click Next: Capacity.
After your cluster is created, refer to Establish private connectivity to finish setting up VPC Peering for your cluster.
Step 5. Configure cluster capacity
The choice of hardware per node determines the cost, throughput, and performance characteristics of your cluster.
On the Capacity page, select the Compute per node.
When selecting your compute power, consider the following factors:
Factor Description Transactions per second Each vCPU can handle approximately 400 transactions per second, depending on the workload. Read-heavy workloads can be expected to perform better. Scaling When scaling up your cluster, it is generally more effective to increase node size up to 16 vCPUs before adding more nodes. For most production applications, we recommend at least 4 to 8 vCPUs per node. Note:Clusters deployed in CockroachDB Cloud can be created with a minimum of 2 vCPUs per node on AWS and GCP or 4 vCPUs per node on Azure.
Memory | Some of a node's provisioned RAM is used for system overhead factors such as filesystem cache and sidecars, so the full amount of memory may not be available to the cluster's workloads.
Select the Storage per node.
Warning:Storage space cannot be removed due to cloud provider limitations.
For optimal performance, choose up to 320 GiB per vCPU. Refer to Pricing for details. IOPS for Azure disks are determined by the disk size, regardless of the VM configuration. To learn more, refer to Premium SSD size in the Azure documentation.
When selecting your storage capacity, consider the following factors:
Factor Description Capacity Total raw data size you expect to store without replication. Replication The default replication factor for a CockroachDB Cloud cluster is 3. Buffer Additional buffer (overhead data, accounting for data growth, etc.). If you are importing an existing dataset, we recommend you provision at least 50% additional storage to account for the import functionality. Compression The percentage of savings you can expect to achieve with compression. With CockroachDB's default compression algorithm, we typically see about a 40% savings on raw data size. For more details about disk performance on a given cloud provider, refer to:
To change the hardware configuration after the cluster is created, see Manage a CockroachDB Dedicated Cluster.
See the Example for further guidance.
Click Next: Finalize.
Step 6. Enter billing details
On the Finalize page, verify your selections for the cloud provider, region(s), number of nodes, and the capacity.
Once your cluster is created, see Establish VPC Peering or AWS PrivateLink to finish setting up VPC Peering for your cluster.
Verify the hourly estimated cost for the cluster. The cost displayed does not include taxes.
You will be billed monthly.
Add your preferred payment method.
If applicable, the 30-day trial code is pre-applied to your cluster.
Note:Make sure that you delete your trial cluster before the trial expires. Your credit card will be charged after the trial ends. You can check the validity of the code on the Billing page.
Step 7. Name the cluster
The cluster is automatically given a randomly-generated name. If desired, change the cluster's name. The cluster name must be 6-20 characters in length, and can include lowercase letters, numbers, and dashes (but no leading or trailing dashes). A cluster's name cannot be edited after it is created.
Step 8. Select the CockroachDB version
When you create a new cluster, it uses the latest CockroachDB Cloud production release by default. All clusters are then upgraded automatically to each subsequent patch release of their major version as it becomes available. To learn more, refer to Upgrade Policy.
Prior to the GA release of a new CockroachDB major version, a series of Beta and Release Candidate (RC) releases are made available for CockroachDB Dedicated as Pre-Production Preview releases. If available, the latest Pre-Production Preview release is listed as an option alongside the latest production release.
Testing releases, including Pre-Production Preview releases, are provided for testing and experimentation only, and are not qualified for production environments and not eligible for support or uptime SLA commitments.
If you install a Pre-Production Preview release, it will be upgraded to each subsequent beta or RC release automatically, before being upgraded to the GA and subsequent patch releases as they become available.
Click Create cluster. Your cluster will be created in approximately 20-30 minutes.
What's next
To start using your CockroachDB Cloud cluster, see the following pages:
- Connect to your cluster
- Authorize users
- Deploy a Python To-Do App with Flask, Kubernetes, and CockroachDB Cloud
If you created a multi-region cluster, it is important to carefully choose:
- The right survival goal for each database.
- The right table locality for each of your tables.
Not doing so can result in unexpected latency and resiliency. For more information, see the Multi-Region Capabilities Overview.
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