2.2 Reserve a static external IP

From the same workstation or Cloud Shell session, reserve a regional Premium Tier external IPv4 address for the VM. Leave the address unattached until the SSH and firewall checks in step 2.4 pass.

gcloud compute addresses create "$ADDRESS_NAME" --region="$REGION" --project="$PROJECT_ID" \
  --network-tier=PREMIUM

Inspect the reservation, then save the address in the current shell. If the reservation already exists, start here and confirm that you own it and that it is available for this VM.

gcloud compute addresses describe "$ADDRESS_NAME" --region="$REGION" --project="$PROJECT_ID" \
  --format='yaml(address,addressType,ipVersion,networkTier,region,status,users)' &&
OPEN_EPM_IP="$(gcloud compute addresses describe "$ADDRESS_NAME" \
  --region="$REGION" --project="$PROJECT_ID" --format='value(address)')" &&
  test -n "$OPEN_EPM_IP" && export OPEN_EPM_IP

Expect an external IPv4 address in the chosen region with Premium Tier, status RESERVED and no attached resource. The address can incur charges while reserved. Keep it for restarts of this deployment and release it when the deployment owner has retired the endpoint and removed its DNS records.