Managed Instance Groups

Managed Instance Groups (MIGs) are a Google Cloud Platform (GCP) service that automates the management of groups of identical virtual machine (VM) instances. They provide features like auto-scaling, auto-healing, rolling updates, and load balancing to ensure high availability and reliability for applications. MIGs are commonly used for stateless workloads, such as web servers or microservices, where instances can be easily replaced or scaled.

Also known as: MIG, Google Cloud Managed Instance Groups, GCP Managed Instance Groups, Instance Groups, Managed VM Groups

Why learn Managed Instance Groups?

Developers should use Managed Instance Groups when deploying scalable, fault-tolerant applications on GCP that require automated instance management. They are ideal for scenarios like handling variable traffic loads with auto-scaling, maintaining uptime through auto-healing of failed instances, and performing zero-downtime updates with rolling deployments. This reduces operational overhead and ensures consistent performance for cloud-native applications.

Learning Resources

• docs: Google Cloud Documentation: Managed Instance Groups
• course: Coursera: Google Cloud Platform Fundamentals: Core Infrastructure
• video: YouTube: Managed Instance Groups Tutorial by Google Cloud Tech
• tutorial: Qwiklabs: Create and Manage Google Cloud Managed Instance Groups