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Qlik Sense Enterprise on Windows deployed to Google Cloud

In a Google Cloud deployment, you install Qlik Sense Enterprise on Windows on a Google Cloud infrastructure that is flexible, high performance, and is quick to set up.

Deploying Qlik Sense Enterprise on Windows on Google Cloud will enable you to quickly add new applications in a simple and scalable manner. You can do this with a basic knowledge of Google Cloud security and scalability options but without the need to follow complex on-premise installation and configuration procedures. Using Google Cloud will enable you to get your Qlik Sense infrastructure up and running in fraction of the time required for an on-premise deployment, and will enable you to scale your deployment quickly and easily, regardless of unexpected changes in demand.

Components

To successfully deploy Qlik Sense Enterprise on Windows on Google Cloud you need a basic understanding of the architecture, and services available in a Google Cloud deployment. As part of a Qlik Sense deployment on Google Cloud, you need the following components:

  • Compute Engine (GCE)

  • Persistent Disk

  • VPC - Virtual Private Cloud
  • Cloud VPN

Google Cloud services

You should also have a basic understanding of other Google Cloud services that you can use for managing resources and as data stores for your Qlik Sense applications:

  • Cloud Deployment Manager

  • Cloud SQL
  • Persistent Disk
  • Google BigQuery

For more information about Google Cloud services, see the Google Cloud website.

Microsoft Windows versions

Your Google Cloud instance needs to be running a Microsoft operating system onto which you can install a Qlik Sense instance. Qlik Sense supports the following Windows operating systems for a Google Cloud deployment:

  • Microsoft Windows Server 2016
  • Microsoft Windows Server 2019
  • Microsoft Windows Server 2022

Qlik Sense Enterprise

Install a single-node Qlik Sense Enterprise on Windows server on your Google Cloud instance.

Qlik Sense Enterprise configuration:

Use the QMC to configure the following:

  • Licensing

    • Tokens (only token-based license)
    • User access (token-based license) or Professional access (user-based license)
    • CPU cores
  • Security groups

Create a proxy setup for allowing HTTP access.

Other considerations

When you deploy Qlik Sense to Google Cloud for the first time you should also consider the following.

Security

Use the QMC to configure all security groups and authentication settings in Qlik Sense. You can make your on-premise Active Directory available in the VPC through an IPsec VPN tunnel to an external IdP with Google Cloud VPN.

For more information about security, see Qlik Sense Enterprise on Windows security

For more information about Google Cloud security, see Google Cloud Security.

Connectivity

Qlik Sense applications can use the following Google Cloud web services as data stores:

  • Cloud SQL for PostgreSQL

    PostgreSQL version 11.5 is required.

  • Google BigQuery
  • Persistent Disk

In a Google Cloud deployment you can use the following connectivity mechanisms to connect to different data sources:

  • ODBC connection
  • OLE DB connection
  • REST API connection
  • Native connector to a specific source

Connectivity scenarios:

  • Qlik Sense instance that uses data stored in Cloud SQL and Google BigQuery.
  • Hybrid Qlik Sense instance - uses data stored in Google Cloud data sources as well as data stored on premise.
Warning noteThe following setup is not supported by the Qlik Sense Service Dispatcher: Adding an SSL connection towards a GCP Postgres database used for the Repository database to configure the repository service to communicate with the instance using certificate authentication with the provided Google certificate files.

Workaround: Install the Cloud SQL Auth proxy on each instance and reconfigure Qlik Sense on all services to communicate with the "localhost" instance of the proxy, which then hosts the communication secured towards the cloud.

For more information about connectivity, see Connecting to data sources.

Scalability and sizing

As your environment grows in terms of number of users, number and size of applications, and the number of data sources, it is important to understand how to size and scale your environment correctly. Resources need to be allocated correctly across the following Qlik Sense services:

  • Engine Service – The QIX engine, provides in-memory Associative Data Indexing and calculation supporting analysis
  • Proxy Service – Manages authentication, handles user sessions and load balancing
  • Repository Service –Manages Qlik Sense applications, controls access, and handles configuration
  • Scheduling Service – Manages reloads of Qlik Sense applications and other scheduled tasks
  • Service Dispatcher – Launch and manage the data profiling service for data load model and chart sharing between two users

For more information about scalability, see the Qlik Sense Performance Benchmark technical brief.

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