# GCP Shared VPC and why I needed to buy a domain

## Why
- Most people would probably buy a domain to host a website, but the reason I bought it is to create a Shared VPC (Virtual Private Cloud) in GCP.
- Google Cloud has a generous limit for $300 for a free trial, but since I signed up with my personal gmail account, they do not belong to any "Organization".
- I needed it for a quick demo

## What are Shared VPC, Organization and why I needed to buy a domain
- Shared VPC allows an "Organization" to connect resources across multiple GCP projects by sharing the subnets with respective GCP projects.
    - Shared VPC (network) needs to be created in its own GCP project (host project).
    - However, the resources (eg: Virtual Machines) themselves could be created in a separate GCP projects as long as the subnets are shared.
- An Organizantion is the root node for resources in GCP and represents an organization (a company)
- An "Organization" is automatically created when a Workspace or Cloud Identity account is created and associated with a domain.
- While signing up for workspace, there is a need to get your own domain or purchase one. 
- Hence, I needed to buy a domain

## Next Steps
- I was in hurry and went with free trial of workspace and purchased a domain. 
- In a different article, I would share how to sign up free Cloud Identity when You already have Workspace.
- I still retain the domain and there are other benefits too like using custom domain on hashnode :), create custom email address on the domain etc.

## References
- [GCP Organization](https://cloud.google.com/resource-manager/docs/cloud-platform-resource-hierarchy#organizations)
- [Shared VPC](https://cloud.google.com/vpc/docs/shared-vpc)
- [Signing up for Google Workspace and purchase domain](https://support.google.com/a/answer/9983832#zippy=%2Ci-need-to-purchase-a-domain)