GKE Basics

01 Apr 2023  Amiya pattanaik  5 mins read.

What is GKE ?

GKE stands for Google Kubernetes Engine, which is a fully-managed container orchestration service offered by Google Cloud Platform. GKE enables you to run, deploy, and manage containerized applications on a cluster of virtual machines that are optimized for Kubernetes.

To use GKE, you need to first create a GKE cluster through the Google Cloud Console or by using the command-line interface. Once the cluster is created, you can deploy your containerized applications to the cluster using Kubernetes manifests or other deployment tools.

Create a GKE cluster through the Google Cloud Console

  1. Log in to your Google Cloud Console.
  2. Select the project where you want to create the GKE cluster.
  3. Navigate to the Kubernetes Engine section in the sidebar.
  4. Click on the Clusters option and then click the Create Cluster button.
  5. Enter a name for your cluster and select the desired location and zone for the cluster.
  6. Choose the desired number and type of nodes for your cluster.
  7. Optionally, you can configure other settings such as network, security, and logging.
  8. Click the “Create” button to create your GKE cluster.

Create a GKE cluster using the command-line interface

  1. Install the Google Cloud SDK on your machine.
  2. Open a terminal or command prompt and log in to your Google Cloud account using the command gcloud auth login.
  3. Set the default project for the gcloud command-line tool using the command gcloud config set project [PROJECT_ID].
  4. Create a GKE cluster using the command gcloud container clusters create [CLUSTER_NAME] --zone [ZONE] --num-nodes [NUM_NODES].
  5. You can optionally add other flags to customize the cluster’s settings.

After running the command, it may take a few minutes for the cluster to be created. You can check the status of the cluster by running the command gcloud container clusters list. Once the status is RUNNING, you can start deploying your applications to the cluster.

Use cases where GKE can be beneficial

  1. Application hosting: GKE can be used to host and manage containerized applications, making it easy to scale up or down based on demand.

  2. DevOps: GKE can be used as part of a DevOps workflow, where developers can easily deploy their applications to a GKE cluster using Kubernetes manifests or other deployment tools.

  3. Microservices: GKE is well-suited for managing microservices architectures, where applications are broken down into smaller, independent services that can be easily deployed and managed.

  4. Big Data: GKE can be integrated with other Google Cloud services like BigQuery and Cloud Storage to create a complete big data infrastructure for processing and analyzing large datasets.

  5. Disaster recovery: GKE can be used to create a disaster recovery solution for your applications by replicating your GKE cluster in a different region or zone.

  6. Hybrid cloud: GKE can be used in a hybrid cloud environment, where you can run your applications on a GKE cluster on-premises or in a different cloud provider’s infrastructure.

  7. Machine learning: GKE can be used to deploy machine learning models as containerized applications, making it easier to scale up or down based on demand and to integrate with other Google Cloud machine learning services.

advantages of using GKE are

  1. Easy to use: GKE abstracts away the complexity of managing a Kubernetes cluster, making it easier for developers to deploy and manage their applications.

  2. Scalability: GKE makes it easy to scale your applications up or down depending on your needs, allowing you to quickly adapt to changes in demand.

  3. Automatic updates and patches: GKE automatically applies security patches and updates to the underlying infrastructure, ensuring that your applications are always running on the latest version of Kubernetes.

  4. Google Cloud integrations: GKE integrates with other Google Cloud services like Cloud Storage, Cloud SQL, and BigQuery, making it easy to build a complete cloud infrastructure for your application.

Disadvantages of using GKE are

  1. Cost: GKE can be more expensive than managing your own Kubernetes cluster on virtual machines or using a different container orchestration service.

  2. Vendor lock-in: Since GKE is a proprietary service offered by Google, you may be locked into using their platform and may find it difficult to migrate to another provider if needed.

  3. Limited customization: GKE abstracts away much of the underlying Kubernetes infrastructure, which can make it difficult to customize your cluster beyond the options provided by GKE.

Conclusion

Overall, GKE can be used in many different use cases where containerized applications need to be managed, scaled, and deployed in a cloud environment. GKE is a powerful and user-friendly tool for managing containerized applications on Google Cloud Platform. Its ease of use and automatic updates make it an attractive option for many developers, but its cost and limited customization may make it less suitable for some use cases.

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Amiya Pattanaik
Amiya Pattanaik

Amiya is a Product Engineering Director focus on Product Development, Quality Engineering & User Experience. He writes his experiences here.