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    ApsaraDB for ClickHouse:Create a cluster

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    ApsaraDB for ClickHouse:Create a cluster

    Last Updated:Aug 26, 2026

    This topic describes how to create an ApsaraDB for ClickHouse cluster.

    Prerequisites

    • You have registered an Alibaba Cloud account. For more information, see Create an Alibaba Cloud account.

    • To create an ApsaraDB for ClickHouse cluster as a RAM user (sub-account), you must grant the AliyunClickHouseFullAccess permission to that user. For more information, see Grant permissions to a RAM user.

    • When you create a cluster, you must activate Application Real-Time Monitoring Service (ARMS). For more information, see Activate ARMS.

    Notes

    By default, a CLB instance is attached to ApsaraDB for ClickHouse clusters created after December 1, 2021. You are charged for this instance. For more information about billing, see Billing of dependent services. If you do not need the CLB instance, release it promptly. For more information, see Release and attach a CLB instance.

    Procedure

    Community-compatible edition

    1. Log on to the ApsaraDB for ClickHouse console.

    2. On the Clusters page, click the Clusters of Community-compatible Edition tab, and then click Create Cluster.

    3. On the buy page, select a Product Type.

      Product Type

      Scenarios

      Subscription Community-compatible Edition

      Creates a subscription-based community-compatible edition cluster.

      Subscription is a prepaid billing method where you pay for the cluster upfront. This billing method is suitable for long-term use and is more cost-effective than pay-as-you-go. The longer the subscription period, the higher the discount.

      Enterprise edition serverless & community-compatible edition pay-as-you-go

      Creates a pay-as-you-go community-compatible edition cluster or an enterprise edition cluster.

      ApsaraDB for ClickHouse supports the following billing methods: Subscription (prepaid) and Pay-as-you-go (postpaid). For more information, see Billing methods.

    4. Configure the parameters as prompted on the page.

      Note

      You do not need to configure ZooKeeper specifications when you create a ApsaraDB for ClickHouse community-compatible edition cluster. After the cluster is created, a ZooKeeper instance with 4 vCPUs and 8 GB of memory is included by default, free of charge.

      Parameter

      Description

      Example

      Region

      The region and zone where the cluster is deployed.

      The region is the geographical location of the cluster. You cannot change the region after the cluster is purchased. We recommend that you select a region that is geographically close to your services to reduce access latency.

      Asia Pacific SE 1 (Singapore), Singapore Zone C

      Cluster Type

      The cluster types that ApsaraDB for ClickHouse supports.

      This parameter is fixed to community-compatible edition.

      Community-compatible Edition

      Deployment Method

      Single-zone: Does not support cross-data center disaster recovery.

      Multi-zone: Supports high availability with disaster recovery within the same city.

      Note

      • The community-compatible edition integrates compute and storage resources. A multi-zone deployment requires a dual-replica configuration, which doubles the compute and storage costs compared to a single-replica configuration.

      • The enterprise edition uses a cloud-native architecture that decouples compute and storage. Therefore, a multi-zone deployment does not add compute costs or storage dependencies.

      Single-zone

      Network Type

      Currently, only Virtual Private Cloud (VPC) is supported. A VPC is an isolated network environment that provides enhanced security.

      VPC

      Zone 1

      A zone is a physical location within a region that has independent power and network infrastructure. There is no significant difference between zones in the same region.

      Note

      If you select the multi-zone deployment method, you must also specify Zone 2 and Zone 3. These zones must be different from Zone 1.

      Hangzhou Zone H

      VPC

      The VPC to which the cluster belongs. If no VPC is available, go to the VPC console to create one.

      Note

      If you are a RAM user, you must have the AliyunVPCFullAccess permission to create a VPC. For more information about how to grant permissions, see Grant permissions to a RAM user.

      vpc-bp175iuvg8nxqraf2****

      vSwitch

      Select a vSwitch within the specified VPC. If no vSwitch is available, go to the VPC console to create one.

      vsw-bp1gzt31twhlo0sa5****

      kernel version

      The corresponding version number of the open source community edition.

      23.8

      Replica Configuration

      • Dual-replica edition:

        • Each shard contains two replica nodes. If one replica becomes unavailable, the other replica in the same shard continues to provide services.

        • Each piece of data is copied to two different replicas to ensure data consistency between them.

          Important

          When you create a table in a dual-replica cluster, you must use an engine from the Replicated*MergeTree family. If you create a table with a non-Replicated*MergeTree engine, data cannot be synchronized between replicas, which may cause data inconsistency. For information about how to create a table that uses a Replicated*MergeTree engine, see Create a table.

      • Single-replica edition: Each shard has only one node. If a node becomes unavailable, the entire cluster becomes unavailable. To restore service, you must wait for the node to fully recover.

      Note

      • The dual-replica edition requires twice the resources and costs twice as much as the single-replica edition.

      • The underlying cloud disks provide high reliability to ensure that no data is lost, even in a single-replica edition cluster.

      Dual-replica edition

      Server specifications

      The vCPU and memory of a single node.

      8 vCPUs, 32 GB

      Server Nodes

      The number of nodes in the cluster.

      1

      Storage Type

      The type of cloud disk. The following list describes common use cases. For more information, see Block storage performance.

      • ESSD

        • Relational databases, such as MySQL, PostgreSQL, Oracle, and SQL Server.

        • NoSQL databases, such as MongoDB, HBase, and Cassandra.

        • Distributed log analysis with Elasticsearch, such as using the ELK (Elasticsearch, Logstash, and Kibana) stack.

      • Ultra Disk

        • Development and testing workloads.

        • System disks.

      PL1 ESSD (Recommended)

      Encryption Type

      Specifies whether to enable cloud disk encryption. If enabled, the entire data disk is encrypted at the block storage level. Data cannot be decrypted even if backups are compromised. For more information, see Cloud disk encryption.

      Cloud disk encryption

      Service-linked Role

      If you set Disk Encryption to Disk Encryption, you must associate a service-linked role to grant access to other Alibaba Cloud services.

      Created

      Encryption Key

      If you set Disk Encryption to Disk Encryption, you must configure an encryption key. If you have not created a Key Management Service (KMS) key in the current region, go to the Key Management Service console to create one.

      0d2470df-da7b-4786-b981-9a164dae****

      Storage Capacity

      The storage capacity of a single node. The total storage capacity is calculated by using the following formula: Number of server nodes × Storage capacity per node. If the storage type is cloud disk and the storage capacity exceeds 2,000 GB, the disk is partitioned into four disks (from cdisk 0 to cdisk 3).

      100 GB

      Purchase Duration

      If you select the Subscription billing method, you must specify the subscription duration.

      1 Month

      Auto-renewal at expiration

      If you select the Subscription billing method, you can choose to enable auto-renewal. If you do not enable Auto-renewal at expiration during cluster creation, you can enable it later or renew the subscription manually in the Renewal console. For more information, see Renewal.

      Select Auto-renewal

      Resource Group

      Resource groups allow you to manage your Alibaba Cloud resources by category. You can manage permissions, deployments, and monitoring on a per-group basis.

      Default Resource Group

    5. After configuring the parameters, click Buy Now and complete the payment.

      Note

      Cluster creation takes 1 to 10 minutes. You can refresh the page to view the status. The cluster is ready when its status changes to Running.

    Enterprise edition

    1. Log on to the ApsaraDB for ClickHouse console.

    2. On the Clusters page, click the Enterprise Edition Clusters tab, and then click Create Cluster.

    3. On the buy page, set Product Type to Enterprise edition serverless & community-compatible edition pay-as-you-go.

    4. Configure the parameters as prompted on the page.

      Parameter

      Description

      Example

      Region

      The region is the geographical location of the cluster. You cannot change the region after the cluster is purchased. We recommend that you select a region that is geographically close to your services to reduce access latency. For information about the specific regions that support the enterprise edition, see Pay-as-you-go for enterprise edition.

      China (Hangzhou)

      Cluster Type

      The cluster types that ApsaraDB for ClickHouse supports.

      This parameter is fixed to enterprise edition.

      Important

      If the Enterprise Edition option is not available in your console, you need to first submit a ticket to determine whether your company is located in a sales region for the ApsaraDB for ClickHouse Enterprise Edition.

      • If your company is in a sales region: We will add your account to the allow list to enable this option.

      • If your company is not in a sales region: You cannot create an enterprise edition cluster.

      Enterprise Edition

      Deployment Method

      Single-zone: Does not support cross-data center disaster recovery.

      Multi-zone: Supports high availability with disaster recovery within the same city.

      Note

      • The community-compatible edition integrates compute and storage resources. A multi-zone deployment requires a dual-replica configuration, which doubles the compute and storage costs compared to a single-replica configuration.

      • The enterprise edition uses a cloud-native architecture that decouples compute and storage. Therefore, a multi-zone deployment does not add compute costs or storage dependencies.

      Single-zone

      Network Type

      Currently, only Virtual Private Cloud (VPC) is supported. A VPC is an isolated network environment that provides enhanced security.

      VPC

      VPC

      The VPC to which the cluster belongs. If no VPC is available, go to the VPC console to create one.

      Note

      If you are a RAM user, you must have the AliyunVPCFullAccess permission to create a VPC. For more information about how to grant permissions, see Grant permissions to a RAM user.

      vpc-bp175iuvg8nxqraf2****

      Zone 1

      A zone is a physical location within a region that has independent power and network infrastructure. There is no significant difference between zones in the same region.

      Note

      If you select the multi-zone deployment method, you must also specify Zone 2 and Zone 3. These zones must be different from Zone 1.

      Hangzhou Zone H

      vSwitch

      Select a vSwitch within the specified VPC. If no vSwitch is available, go to the VPC console to create one.

      Note

      If you select the multi-zone deployment method, you must also specify vSwitch 2 and vSwitch 3. These vSwitches must be different from vSwitch.

      vsw-bp1gzt31twhlo0sa5****

      Minimum Reserved Specs per Server

      The minimum number of ClickHouse Compute Units (CCUs) for the node.

      4

      Maximum Specs per Server

      The maximum number of CCUs for the node. Compute resources are automatically scaled based on the cluster workload in CCU increments. After a scale-in, the number of CCUs cannot be less than the minimum reserved specifications. One CCU is approximately equivalent to 1 vCPU and 4 GiB of memory.

      8

      Sample test data

      ApsaraDB for ClickHouse enterprise edition clusters support importing sample datasets, including cell towers, NewYorkTaxi data, and UK Property Price Paid. By default, Do Not Import Any Sample Data is selected.

      Do Not Import Any Sample Data

    5. After configuring the parameters, click Buy Now and complete the payment.

      Note

      Cluster creation takes 1 to 10 minutes. You can refresh the page to view the status. The cluster is ready when its status changes to Running.

    Checkout

    If you purchase a subscription cluster, you can click Add to List after you configure the cluster to check out with other products. To pay for the items in your shopping cart, perform the following steps:

    1. On the Subscription page, click Shopping Cart in the upper-right corner of the page.

    2. On the Shopping Cart page, select the products that you want to purchase and click Buy and Start.

      Note

      You can also change the Quantity for the ApsaraDB for ClickHouse cluster.

    3. On the Confirm Order page, read and agree to the terms of service, and then click Buy.

    4. On the Pay page, click Subscribe.

    FAQ

    Q: Why can't I find my cluster after creating it?

    A: The following table describes the possible causes and solutions.

    Cause

    Description

    Solution

    Incorrect region selected

    You are viewing a different region in the console than the one where the cluster was created.

    In the upper-left corner of the ApsaraDB for ClickHouse console, select the region where the cluster is located.

    Incorrect cluster list selected

    You are viewing the incorrect cluster list for the cluster type you created.

    In the ApsaraDB for ClickHouse console, select the correct cluster list tab for your cluster.

    Insufficient resources in the zone

    Cluster creation can fail due to insufficient resources in the zone, resulting in an automatic refund. You can view the refund in Order Management.

    After confirming the refund, try creating the cluster again in a different zone.

    Next steps

    Create a database account