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Fractal Cloud Environment Initialization

Why do you need to initialize an environment?​

Environment initialization in Fractal Cloud is the process that bridges the Fractal Cloud control plane with your cloud environments through the installation of a Cloud Agent specialized for the cloud vendor you choose.

The control plane uses temporary credentials and has no direct access to your cloud environments. The Cloud Agent analyzes the drift between the declared infrastructure state (stored on the control plane) and the actual state of the provisioned cloud infrastructure, continuously resolving any differences.

One environment can have up to one agent per supported cloud vendor.

Supported cloud providers​

ProviderWeb UISDKAvailability
Amazon Web Services (AWS)YesYesGeneral
Microsoft AzureYesYesGeneral
Google Cloud Platform (GCP)YesYesGeneral
Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI)NoYesEnterprise
Hetzner CloudNoYesEnterprise
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Integration with OCI and Hetzner is currently available for enterprise customers only.

Initialization methods​

Web UI​

You can initialize environments for AWS, Azure, and GCP directly from the Fractal Cloud Web UI.

  1. Choose the Environment — Ensure you have an environment ready. If not, follow the Quick Start guide.
  2. Open the Configuration Panel — Select the Configure button on the Environments dashboard.
  3. Navigate to Cloud Agents tab — Find and select the Cloud Agents tab.
  4. Select a Cloud Provider — Choose your target provider from the list.
  5. Initialize the Cloud Agent — Click the Initialize button to start the process.
  6. Follow On-Screen Instructions — The UI will guide you through authentication and configuration.
Understanding OAuth 2.0 Device Flow

During initialization, we may use OAuth 2.0 Device Flow for authentication:

  1. You will be provided with a device code.
  2. You'll be asked to visit a specific URL on a web browser.
  3. Enter the provided device code to authenticate.
  4. After successful authentication, the setup will proceed automatically.

This ensures the Cloud Agent gets the permissions it needs without you sharing login credentials directly.

SDK​

You can initialize environments programmatically using the Fractal SDKs, for example as part of your CI/CD pipelines:

  1. Create a Fractal Resource Group — Ensure you have one ready. If not, follow the Quick Start guide.
  2. Set up vendor credentials — Follow the vendor-specific guide linked above.
  3. Run the initialization — See the environment initialization sample.

The SDK checks if the environment exists in Fractal Cloud. If not, it creates the environment and all required Cloud Agent resources automatically.

Important

Do not manually modify or delete any Fractal Cloud Agent resources. To disconnect your environment from Fractal Cloud, use the UI or SDK to remove the Environment — this will also clean up all Cloud Agent resources within your cloud infrastructure.