GCE picks zones for creating VM instances to fulfill the requested number of VMs within present resource constraints and to maximize utilization of unused zonal reservations. Recommended for batch workloads that do not require high availability.
AnySingleZone
GCE always selects a single zone for all the VMs, optimizing for resource quotas, available reservations and general capacity. Recommended for batch workloads that cannot tollerate distribution over multiple zones. This the default shape in Bulk Insert and Capacity Advisor APIs.
Balanced
GCE prioritizes acquisition of resources, scheduling VMs in zones where resources are available while distributing VMs as evenly as possible across allowed zones to minimize the impact of zonal failure. Recommended for highly available serving workloads.
UndefinedTargetShape
A value indicating that the enum field is not set.
[[["Easy to understand","easyToUnderstand","thumb-up"],["Solved my problem","solvedMyProblem","thumb-up"],["Other","otherUp","thumb-up"]],[["Missing the information I need","missingTheInformationINeed","thumb-down"],["Too complicated / too many steps","tooComplicatedTooManySteps","thumb-down"],["Out of date","outOfDate","thumb-down"],["Samples / code issue","samplesCodeIssue","thumb-down"],["Other","otherDown","thumb-down"]],["Last updated 2025-08-08 UTC."],[[["\u003cp\u003eThe latest version available for \u003ccode\u003eLocationPolicy.Types.TargetShape\u003c/code\u003e is 3.6.0.\u003c/p\u003e\n"],["\u003cp\u003eThis page provides versioned documentation for \u003ccode\u003eLocationPolicy.Types.TargetShape\u003c/code\u003e, spanning from version 1.0.0 up to the latest version, 3.6.0.\u003c/p\u003e\n"],["\u003cp\u003eThe \u003ccode\u003eLocationPolicy.Types.TargetShape\u003c/code\u003e enum offers different strategies (\u003ccode\u003eAny\u003c/code\u003e, \u003ccode\u003eAnySingleZone\u003c/code\u003e, \u003ccode\u003eBalanced\u003c/code\u003e, and \u003ccode\u003eUndefinedTargetShape\u003c/code\u003e) for distributing VMs across zones in a region.\u003c/p\u003e\n"],["\u003cp\u003eEach strategy provided in the documentation gives a different recommendation for workloads, such as "batch workloads" and "highly available serving workloads".\u003c/p\u003e\n"],["\u003cp\u003eThe current page displays the \u003ccode\u003eLocationPolicy.Types.TargetShape\u003c/code\u003e information for version 2.13.0, which can be changed by selecting a different version from the list.\u003c/p\u003e\n"]]],[],null,[]]
