Single node Qlik Sense in GCP through Terraform

This Terraform project will deploy a Windows Server 2016 in Google Cloud Platform (GCP). Qlik Sense Enterprise February 2019 will then be downloaded, installed and enabled through a startup PS1 script.

Prerequisites

• Valid Qlik Sense license
• Terraform
• Google Cloud SDK
• Billing enabled GCP account

Setup GCP project and Service Account

The deployment requires a service account with correct associated roles. This can be setup manually in GCP Console or through Google Cloud SDK as show below.

1. Login to GCP
   gcloud auth login [email protected]
2. Create project with a new unique project id
   gcloud projects create --name='QSEfW Single Node'
3. Take note of the project id. Use it instead of PROJECT_ID in all following commands.
4. Set new project as active
   gcloud config set project qsefw-single-node-238003
5. Add service account qsefw-sa to project
   gcloud iam service-accounts create qsefw-sa --display-name='QSEfW Service Account'
6. Create GCP account file for the service account, and store in .secrets folder
   gcloud iam service-accounts keys create ./.secrets/account.json --iam-account [email protected]
7. Bind service account to required roles
   • Compute Engine Admin
     gcloud projects add-iam-policy-binding qsefw-single-node-238003 --member serviceAccount:[email protected] --role roles/compute.admin
   • Compute Network Admin
     gcloud projects add-iam-policy-binding qsefw-single-node-238003 --member serviceAccount:[email protected] --role roles/compute.networkAdmin
8. Enable required APIs. Following billing enablement link if required.
   • Compute Engine API
     gcloud services enable compute.googleapis.com

Configuration

Terraform prompts for undefined variables during validation and execution.

.tfvars files can be used to define variabel values, prior to Terrafrom validation and execution. variables.tpl.tfvars contains a template for required variables for this project.

.tfvars can be picked up automatically by Terraform, if file is renamed as .auto.tfvars.
mv variables.tpl.tfvars variables.auto.tfvars

If not automated, .tfvars file is applied by reference through command parameter.
terraform plan -var-file="variables.tfvars"
terraform apply -var-file="variables.tfvars"

Deploy

1. Login to GCP
   gcloud auth login [email protected]
2. Initiate Terraform
   terraform init
3. Validate config
   terraform plan
4. Deploy GCP infrastructure and install Qlik Sense for Windows
   terraform apply
5. Total deployment time is 20-30 minutes with a n1-highmem-2 instance. Configuration passwords are generated by Terraform, and presented after successful deployment.
6. Connect to Windows server through central-node.rdp using the Windows administrator credentials.
   Note, it can take several minutes before RDP has been enabled in the GCE instance.

Destroy

1. Completely remove current deployment
   terraform destroy

License

This project is provided "AS IS", without any warranty, under the MIT License - see the LICENSE file for details