Google GKE — Introduction
Welcome to the Google GKE Tutorial
Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE) is Google Cloud’s managed Kubernetes service — built by the same team that created Kubernetes. GKE offers two modes: Standard (you manage nodes) and Autopilot (Google manages everything).
What is GKE?
GKE provides:
- Managed control plane — Google manages the API server, etcd, scheduler, and controllers
- Autopilot mode — Fully managed nodes; pay per Pod, not per node
- Release channels — Rapid, Regular, Stable for automated version management
- GKE Sandbox — gVisor-based workload isolation
- Integrated GCP services — Cloud Logging, Cloud Monitoring, Artifact Registry, Workload Identity
GKE Standard vs Autopilot
| Feature | Standard | Autopilot |
|---|---|---|
| Node management | You manage | Google manages |
| Pricing | Per node (VM) | Per Pod (CPU + memory) |
| Node pools | Configurable | Automatic |
| GPU support | Full control | Supported |
| DaemonSets | Full control | Limited |
| SSH to nodes | Yes | No |
| Best for | Custom workloads, fine control | Most workloads, less ops |
Prerequisites
Before starting this tutorial, you should have:
- A Google Cloud account (free tier available)
- Google Cloud SDK (
gcloud) installed kubectlinstalled- Completed the Kubernetes Foundation Tutorial or equivalent experience
Installing Google Cloud SDK
# macOS
brew install google-cloud-sdk
# Linux
curl https://sdk.cloud.google.com | bash
exec -l $SHELL
# Initialize and authenticate
gcloud init
gcloud auth login
# Install kubectl via gcloud
gcloud components install kubectl
# Verify
gcloud version
kubectl version --client
What You’ll Learn
In this tutorial series, you’ll learn to:
- Create and manage GKE clusters (Standard and Autopilot)
- Configure VPC-native networking and Cloud Load Balancing
- Use Persistent Disks and Filestore for storage
- Implement Workload Identity for secure GCP API access
- Monitor clusters with Cloud Operations (Logging + Monitoring)
- Scale with cluster autoscaler and node auto-provisioning
- Set up CI/CD with Cloud Build and Cloud Deploy
Practice Questions
Q1: What are the key differences between GKE Standard and Autopilot?
Show Answer
- **Standard**: You create and manage node pools (VM instances). You have full control over node configuration, SSH access, and DaemonSets. Billed per node. - **Autopilot**: Google manages the nodes entirely. You just deploy Pods. Google handles scaling, security patching, and node sizing. Billed per Pod resource requests (CPU + memory). Autopilot is recommended for most workloads as it reduces operational overhead.Q2: What are GKE release channels?
