Google Kubernetes Engine is a portable, open-source container-orchestration system that automates containerized application deployment and management at scale. It is a container-centric management environment that allows users to interact with their Docker container and container clusters, deploy and manage cloud-based apps, set policies, and monitor app health. It is currently the leading managed Kubernetes solution and users benefit from Google’s 10+ years’ experience of running its production workloads in containers.
For users not familiar with containers, they allow hardware-independent applications to be created. The applications are separate from infrastructure and can be consistently deployed in different environments. Essentially this is achieved by breaking applications down into smaller parts that are then deployed and managed dynamically. Containers are lightweight and services can be called upon when needed and made available immediately. Containers are also portable and can be transferred between the cloud and on-premises environments easily.
Google Kubernetes Engine offers IT teams an easy way of using Kubernetes to run and manage containerized applications without having to install, manage, and run Kubernetes clusters directly. Google Kubernetes Engine consists of multiple Google Compute instances which are grouped together into a cluster. A master node runs a cluster of containers and a Kubernetes API server is also run, which interacts with the cluster to perform various tasks via API calls.
Apps are packaged into a cluster, and once the compute, memory, and storage requirements of the app have been configured, GKE automates the provisioning and management of the cloud resources the app requires. It also allows resources to be automatically scaled up as demand increases and scaled down when demand falls. Google site reliability engineers (SREs) constantly monitor container clusters and associated resources to ensure services are always available. The software for the nodes is also updated automatically. This means that IT teams can focus on their applications rather than the infrastructure on which they run.
Google Kubernetes Engine is commonly used by software developers to create and test new applications, but also for running enterprise applications such as web servers to ensure constant availability and meet applications’ scalability and performance demands. Advanced cluster management features are also included, such as load-balancing for compute engine instances, auto-scaling, automatic software upgrades on cluster node software, auto-repair to maintain node health and availability, and logging and monitoring through Stackdriver.
Users interact with their clusters via the Google Cloud Platform Console or the gcloud command line interface while using Kubernetes commands and resources to deploy and manage their containerized applications. Containerized applications that are configured to run on Google Kubernetes Engine are portable, not tied to any one vendor, and can be run anywhere that Kubernetes is supported—such as on-premises servers.
Pricing for Google Kubernetes Engine can change, so it is important to investigate current pricing before setting up containers. Currently, Google’s charges are based on the number of nodes in a cluster. A flat fee is charged per hour, per cluster with a cluster of five nodes or less currently free of charge.
Related reading:
CloudHealth Technologies Delivers Granular Visibility For Google Cloud Platform
3 Ways To Reduce Spend In Your Google Cloud Platform
A Comparison of AWS vs Azure vs Google
