Lesson 5.1 · 12 min read

Google Cloud Confidential VMs

Choosing a confidential computing technology on Compute Engine, launching an instance, and checking its attestation.

What Google Cloud offers

A Google Cloud Confidential VM is a Compute Engine instance that runs on a CPU TEE. Google Cloud supports AMD SEV, AMD SEV-SNP and Intel TDX, each on specific machine series and zones; check the current Google Cloud documentation for which machine types support which technology. The technology is selected at creation time with the --confidential-compute-type flag.

bash

gcloud compute instances create my-instance \
    --machine-type=n2d-standard-2 \
    --min-cpu-platform="AMD Milan" \
    --zone=us-central1-a \
    --confidential-compute-type=SEV_SNP \
    --maintenance-policy=TERMINATE \
    --image-project=ubuntu-os-cloud \
    --image-family=ubuntu-2404-lts-amd64

Example from Google Cloud's documentation: an AMD SEV-SNP Confidential VM

Confidential VMs also have a virtual TPM through Shielded VM features, and Google Cloud documents how to retrieve and verify attestation evidence for each technology. Launch-integrity events are written to Cloud Logging.

Key takeaways

Google Cloud Confidential VMs support AMD SEV, SEV-SNP and Intel TDX on specific machine series.
Pick the technology at creation with --confidential-compute-type.
The guest OS is in the TCB, and anyone who can log in can read plaintext.