VAST On Cloud Deployment on GCP Using Polaris

This document was created to provide a clear set of instructions for the successful deployment of Vast On Cloud (AKA VoC) in a Google Cloud Platform (AKA GCP). This document shall cover Polaris UI, the Vastcloud execution tool, and the system requirements checker.
The steps in this procedure are based on the current status as of May 5, 2026

Before you begin

Before you begin the VoC deployment, you need to receive an invitation via email. This message is sent by a VAST admin or by a colleague who’s already registered to the Polaris portal.

The Polaris invitation looks like the example below.

Polaris invitation

Once you click the registration link, you’ll be taken to a password creation form. Complete the password creation. At this point, you are ready for the next step.

Create a new deployment

Once logged in to the Polaris portal https://admin.gcp.polaris.vastdata.com/ , click on the “Deployment” cloud icon on the left side of the screen.

Click on “Create new deployment.”

Please make sure to review the following details:

Element	Note
Entitlements	Make sure you are on your designated Entitlements and that you see your capacity and resources
Deployment name	A unique name for this deployment
GCP protect ID	Enter the name of the GCP project that will be in use for deployment
Instance Type	Choose an ENode instance type
Region	Select the region where the deployment will take place
Zone	Select the zone inside the region for deployment
Key/Value	Enter key<=> value that will be added as a tag to the instances
Deployment Type	Choose a single-node deployment or a full cluster array

As you can see in this example, we’ve used vastdata-voc as the deployment name

vast-on-cloud was chosen as the project to use, us-central1 and us-central1-a set as region and zone, we also selected a full array cluster deployment consists with 8-nodes that will come to a 210TB of storage VoC system.

Deployment Configuration - Capacity Configuration

Once all details are in place, hit the “Create Deployment Configuration” button. A new window will appear with download links for the vastcloud tool and deployment hints. Select your operating system, copy the download URL, and close the window using the “close” button.

Deployment Configuration - Deploying your CAST cluster

vastcloud and required tools

Open your local terminal and paste the curl command from the previous step.

curl https://storage.googleapis.com/polaris-vastcloud/install_vastcloud.sh | bash

Hit the Y key to allow the operation, this will install the vastcloud util as well as the required tools and dependencies.

base) ➜  ~ curl https://storage.googleapis.com/polaris-vastcloud/install_vastcloud.sh | bash
  % Total    % Received % Xferd  Average Speed   Time    Time     Time  Current
                                 Dload  Upload   Total   Spent    Left  Speed
100  9548  100  9548    0     0  19262      0 --:--:-- --:--:-- --:--:-- 19250
[INFO] Detecting system...
[INFO] Detected: darwin/arm64
[INFO] Checking for cloud CLI tools...
[WARN] The following cloud CLI tools are not installed:
  - google-cloud-sdk
  - awscli
  - azure-cli
  - hashicorp/tap/terraform

Would you like to install the missing tools using Homebrew? (y/N): y

During the process, you may be prompted to enter a password for the sudo user in order to write data into /usr/local/bin directory, once done, the deployment will be completed.

INFO] Downloading from darwin-arm64/vastcloud...
######################################################################## 100.0%
[WARN] Cannot write to /usr/local/bin, trying with sudo...
Password:
[INFO] Installed to: /usr/local/bin/vastcloud (with sudo)
[INFO] Installation successful!
[INFO] Run 'vastcloud --help' to get started

Authentication

The following commands must be executed to authenticate the local machine with GCP. These credentials expire, so the commands need to be run approximately every 12 hours.

gcloud auth login

gcloud auth application-default login

First run.

gcloud auth login

You will get a long URL on your terminal, and a browser window will open for selecting a Google account to use.

~/.vast > gcloud auth login                                                                                                                                                                                            gcloud vast-on-cloud
Your browser has been opened to visit:

    https://accounts.google.com/o/oauth2/auth?response_type=code&client_id=32555940559.apps.googleusercontent.com&redirect_uri=http%3A%2F%2Flocalhost%3A8085%2F&scope=openid+https%3A%2F%2Fwww.googleapis.com%2Fauth%2Fuserinfo.email+https%3A%2F%2Fwww.googleapis.com%2Fauth%2Fcloud-platform+https%3A%2F%2Fwww.googleapis.com%2Fauth%2Fappengine.admin+https%3A%2F%2Fwww.googleapis.com%2Fauth%2Fsqlservice.login+https%3A%2F%2Fwww.googleapis.com%2Fauth%2Fcompute+https%3A%2F%2Fwww.googleapis.com%2Fauth%2Faccounts.reauth&state=DwIQB3MDaNVAPlq1Drc0F7m25YPVFj&access_type=offline&code_challenge=j8vB5VIujjdE2uQgu6BU_NZ6hGz3H8ssdABL2xihQC4&code_challenge_method=S256

In the browser, select the account.

Now allow authentication and access.

authentication access authorization — Authentication Access Authorization

Back in your terminal window, you will see the authentication result.

You are now logged in as [vast.admin@vastdata.com].
Your current project is [vast-on-cloud].  You can change this setting by running:
  $ gcloud config set project PROJECT_ID

Now run the second command.

gcloud auth application-default login

~/.vast > gcloud auth application-default login                                                                                                                                                                    52s gcloud vast-on-cloud
Your browser has been opened to visit:

    https://accounts.google.com/o/oauth2/auth?response_type=code&client_id=764086051850-6qr4p6gpi6hn506pt8ejuq83di341hur.apps.googleusercontent.com&redirect_uri=http%3A%2F%2Flocalhost%3A8085%2F&scope=openid+https%3A%2F%2Fwww.googleapis.com%2Fauth%2Fuserinfo.email+https%3A%2F%2Fwww.googleapis.com%2Fauth%2Fcloud-platform+https%3A%2F%2Fwww.googleapis.com%2Fauth%2Fsqlservice.login&state=WPnBg3JFNy8o1fJnASonQJ4CdUOnTh&access_type=offline&code_challenge=Aw0TLdO1S1rKPJ9JTij5lFfbda-gt2pPPUfkmFlniS0&code_challenge_method=S256

A browser window will open, choose the account to use, then in the newly opened window, click on the “Continue” button.

Grant Google Auth access to Google account — Grant Google Auth access to your Google account

Go back to the terminal window and verify that the authentication completed as expected.

Create local configuration

Run the command below to create a configuration:

vastcloud config init select GCP as a provider

vastcloud config init

Review the output.

~/.vast > vastcloud config init

    1111111  00000000000
     111            000
      111          000     11     11       11        1111111    11111111
        11        11        11   11       1111       11            11
         11     111          11 11       11  11        11111       11
           11  111            111       11    11     1111111       11
           111111
             11

Configuration Wizard


Authenticating with GCP...
Authentication successful!

Using API endpoint: Production (https://api.gcp.polaris.vastdata.com)

Configuration saved successfully!
  Config file: /Users/admin.vast/.vast/config.yaml
  Account: production-gcp
  Context: production-gcp-ctx (set as current)
  API Endpoint: https://api.gcp.polaris.vastdata.com

You can now use 'vastcloud login' to authenticate with the Polaris API.
~/.vast >

At this point, we’ll need to run the last authentication step by running vastcloud login.

vastcloud login

~/.vast > vastcloud login
Authenticating with gcp...
Cloud provider authentication successful!

Opening browser for authentication...
Waiting for authentication...

A new browser window will open asking for your username. Enter the username you used for the Polaris login, then hit “Continue”.

Enter your password and hit “Sign in”

You should now see this confirmation window.

Return to the terminal and make sure that the system provided you with an authentication confirmation.

✓ Logged in as dotan@vastdata.com
  Token valid until: 2026-05-07 18:56:08

Run “vastcloud docs gcp-permissions” command to validate configuration requirements
Run the vastcloud preflight checker Vastcloud preflight checker walkthrough - GCP for full validation check

Check authenticated account permissions by running:

vastcloud cluster check-permissions --provider gcp

Review the output:

~/.vast > vastcloud cluster check-permissions --provider gcp
Discovering GCP projects from Polaris clusters...
Discovered 1 GCP project(s) from Polaris clusters.

 Permission check: GCP
 Identity: admin.vast@vastdata.com

── Project: vast-on-cloud (1/1) ──

 Privileged roles detected: roles/owner — storage permission probe failures are overridden.

╭─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┬────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────╮
│                                                      Operation                                                      │                                                       Status                                                       │
├─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┼────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ config/login                                                                                                        │ OK                                                                                                                 │
│ cluster list                                                                                                        │ OK                                                                                                                 │
│ cluster create                                                                                                      │ OK                                                                                                                 │
│ cluster delete                                                                                                      │ OK                                                                                                                 │
╰─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┴────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────╯

  You can:    config/login, cluster list, cluster create, cluster delete

Create deployment

Run the command below to start the deployment.

vastcloud cluster create --select vastdata-voc where in this example we’ve used bastdata-voc as the deployment name

vastcloud cluster create --select vastdata-voc

Follow the instructions and answer/respond within the interactive menu.

~/.vast > vastcloud cluster create --select vastdata-voc                                                                                                                                                                                 4s
Discovering subscription...
Using subscription: 7cdf6853-2786-4ed1-b302-9ea9449cb969
Discovering resource group...
Using resource group: default
Auto-selected cluster: vastdata-voc
Generating PIN...
PIN generated successfully!
Using Polaris credentials from pin
Using metadata tags from Polaris deployment: 1 tags

  Initializing cluster from Polaris credentials: >  vastdata-voc

Select the network to use.

Manually enter the IP address range to use.

Choose whether to run the pre-flight checker tool. If you choose to run the tool, a verification process will start and generate a readiness report that determines whether all prerequisites were configured properly.

Confirm IP address range — Choose whether to run the pre-checker

If you choose not to run the validation tool, the deployment will start.

Monitor the deployment progress.

You can use the monitoring URL to closely monitor the deployment state.

Once the installation is completed, you shall see the following output with all the details.

You can always run vastcloud cluster list to view, delete, or manage the cluster list and status.

vastcoud cluster list

╭──────────────────────┬───────────────┬───────────────┬───────────────────────┬───────────────────────────┬──────────╮
│         name         │     state     │  ip address   │    management url     │        monitor url        │ provider │
├──────────────────────┼───────────────┼───────────────┼───────────────────────┼───────────────────────────┼──────────┤
│ vastdata-voc         │ running       │ 10.120.85.151 │ https://10.120.85.29  │ http://10.120.85.151:5551 │ GCP      │
╰──────────────────────┴───────────────┴───────────────┴───────────────────────┴───────────────────────────┴──────────╯

Once the deployment completed you can visit the Vast cluster using the web UI just as any other Vast cluster.

It is mostly recommended to read the vastcloud command reference for more advanced usage