Create a TiDB Cloud Starter or Essential Cluster

This document describes how to create a TiDB Cloud Starter or TiDB Cloud Essential cluster in the TiDB Cloud console.

Before you begin

If you do not have a TiDB Cloud account, click here to sign up for an account.

• You can either sign up with email and password so that you can manage your password using TiDB Cloud, or sign up with your Google, GitHub, or Microsoft account.
• For AWS Marketplace users, you can also sign up through AWS Marketplace. To do that, search for TiDB Cloud in AWS Marketplace, subscribe to TiDB Cloud, and then follow the onscreen instructions to set up your TiDB Cloud account.
• For Azure Marketplace users, you can also sign up through Azure Marketplace. To do that, search for TiDB Cloud in Azure Marketplace, subscribe to TiDB Cloud, and then follow the onscreen instructions to set up your TiDB Cloud account.
• For Google Cloud Marketplace users, you can also sign up through Google Cloud Marketplace. To do that, search for TiDB Cloud in Google Cloud Marketplace, subscribe to TiDB Cloud, and then follow the onscreen instructions to set up your TiDB Cloud account.
• For Alibaba Cloud Marketplace users, you can also sign up through Alibaba Cloud Marketplace. To do that, search for TiDB Cloud in Alibaba Cloud Marketplace, subscribe to TiDB Cloud, and then follow the onscreen instructions to set up your TiDB Cloud account.

Steps

If you are in the Organization Owner or the Project Owner role, you can create a TiDB Cloud Starter or TiDB Cloud Essential cluster as follows:

1. Log in to the TiDB Cloud console, and then navigate to the Clusters page.

2. Click Create Cluster.

3. Select a cluster plan and the cloud provider.

   • For AWS, you can start with a Starter cluster.
   • For Alibaba Cloud, you can start with a Starter cluster and later upgrade to an Essential cluster as your needs grow.

   For more information, see cluster plans.

4. Select a region where you want to host your cluster.

5. Update the default cluster name if necessary.

6. Update the capacity of the cluster.

   • Starter plan:

     • You can update the spending limit for your cluster. If the spending limit is set to 0, the cluster remains free. If the spending limit is greater than 0, you need to add a credit card before creating the cluster.

     • By default, each organization can create up to five free Starter clusters. To create additional Starter clusters, you must add a credit card and specify a spending limit.

   • Essential plan:

     • You must specify both a minimum and maximum number of Request Capacity Units (RCUs) for your cluster.

     • RCUs represent the compute resources provisioned for your workload. TiDB Cloud automatically scales your cluster within this range based on demand.

7. Click Create.

   The cluster creation process starts and your TiDB Cloud cluster will be created in approximately 30 seconds.

What's next

After your cluster is created, follow the instructions in Connect to TiDB Cloud via Public Endpoint to create a password for your cluster.