LAB10_GCP_NoSQL Database: Provisioning a Firestore Database

NoSQL Database: Provisioning a Firestore Database

☁ GCP 🟢 Beginner Firestore Datastore Mode NoSQL

Scenario

Your serverless app requires a flexible, fast, heavily scalable NoSQL document database to store application profiles. Instead of provisioning a heavy Cassandra or MongoDB cluster, you will use Firestore in Native mode, Google's fully managed serverless NoSQL document database.

Your Objectives
  • Enable the App Engine integration / Firestore database for the project using a google_firestore_database resource.
  • Set the location ID (e.g. nam5 for us-central multi-region).
  • Set the type to FIRESTORE_NATIVE (as opposed to Datastore mode).
  • Ensure you set the database name to (default) as most projects use the default database.

Additional Context

Firestore vs Datastore: Historically, GCP offered "Datastore". They rebuilt it entirely as "Firestore". When you make a database, you must choose whether you want the backwards-compatible "Datastore mode" or the new robust "Native mode". For all new applications, Native mode is highly recommended.

Default Database vs Named Databases: Most older GCP projects could only have ONE Firestore database, named `(default)`. GCP now supports multiple databases per project, but many client SDKs still automatically assume you are interacting with the `(default)` database unless explicitly configured otherwise.

variables.tf

variable "project_id" { type = string }
variable "location_id" { type = string; default = "nam5" } # NA multi-region

main.tf

provider "google" {
  project = var.project_id
}

# The expected App Engine location dependency is sometimes tricky.
# Make sure the project has an App Engine application created if using Datastore mode,
# but for Native mode on new projects, google_firestore_database is sufficient.

resource "google_firestore_database" "database" {
  project     = var.project_id
  
  # "(default)" is the standard name indicating the primary DB for the project
  name        = "(default)"
  
  # location_id accepts regions ("us-central1") or multi-regions ("nam5" for multi-region US)
  location_id = var.location_id
  
  # FIRESTORE_NATIVE or DATASTORE_MODE. Native is recommended.
  type        = "FIRESTORE_NATIVE"

  # Determines if concurrent connections and transactions are managed
  concurrency_mode = "OPTIMISTIC"
}

outputs.tf

output "firestore_db_name" {
  value = google_firestore_database.database.name
}

Workflow Commands

terraform init
terraform apply -var="project_id=my-gcp-project-123"

# Verify Firestore creation by listing databases
gcloud firestore databases list

terraform destroy -var="project_id=my-gcp-project-123"
✓ Expected Output After Apply
Apply complete! Resources: 1 added, 0 changed, 0 destroyed.

Outputs:

firestore_db_name = "(default)"

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