In the modern technology world,  the technical domain is inclining towards cloud computing as it solves various problems such as accessibility and scalability. Most of the time, people use the same resources for running multiple software or programs on various operating systems, which creates inconsistencies. But this issue eradicates with Google Kubernetes Engine or GKE as it includes containers that make programs independent of OS and speeds up the app development process using solutions created with the cloud ecosystem.

GKE is the simplest way for deploying, scaling, and managing apps through Google infrastructure. In this blog, you will understand Kubernetes in detail, GKE’s salient features, and the advantages you can get by implementing it.

Kubernetes Overview

It is an extensible and portable open-source platform used to manage containers. It was created by Google, also known as K8s, which makes many computers or machines work in one unit. Through Kubernetes, several people can utilize containerized apps that work together, whether the apps are on various platforms.

Why Opt For GKE (Google Kubernetes Engine)?

GKE helps a lot in the app development and deployment process as it manages containerized applications. There are many reasons to select GKE, and some of them are mentioned below:

• Google developed both GKE and Kubernetes. So, there is an excellent team, and GKE provides easy integration with plentiful Google services.
• It offers nodes auto-scaling that Amazon Kubernetes and Azure container Services lack.
• Any new tool or feature released will be seen first in GKE before it comes to other vendors.
• GKE is the cheapest Kubernetes service which makes an amazing option to choose when working with containers.

Key Advantages of Google Kubernetes Engine

1. Accelerate App Development Without Compromising Security

The development process automatically becomes faster with continuous integration and continuous deployment tools. The use of Kubernetes-native CI/CD tools helps secure and accelerate every stage of the create-and-deploy life cycle.

2. Release Channels for Streamlining Operations

With GKE, you can select a release channel that best suits your business requirements. It provides faster and stable channels having the option of node upgrades. Moreover, you can get the support levels lined up with channel nature.

3. Google Site Reliability Engineers for Monitoring Clusters

With Google SREs, you can look at your cluster, storage resources, and computing networks. It has built-in integrations for troubleshooting incidents quickly.

4. Access Several Storage Options

There are many storage options in GKE that you can use throughout the development life cycle. The options differ in ease of utilization and flexibility. GKE has storage abstractions used for providing storage to clusters.

5. Use of Load Balancing

GKE enables users to define the way the apps are deployed or communicate with one another. The networking model depends on IP address. Services, containers, nodes, and pods communicate through IP addresses. Thus, it offers multiple load balancing types to direct the traffic towards the right pods.

Main Features of Google Kubernetes Engine

1. Different Operation Modes

GKE provides two operation modes that are Autopilot and Standard. Autopilot is a solution that handles the infrastructure of the whole cluster without the need for configuration and monitoring. It includes per-pod billing, where you only have to pay for the running pods and not for the system components, unallocated space, or overhead of operating systems. The Standard mode provides you complete control over nodes and the capability to adjust and run administrative workloads.

2. Auto-Scaling of Cluster and Pod

GKE is the fully managed service of Kubernetes that comprises Kubernetes API, release channels, multi-cluster support, and 4-way auto-scaling. The auto-scaling of the horizontal pod is based on custom metrics and CPU usage. Cluster auto-scaling runs on a per-node-pool basis, and the auto-scaling of vertical pod analyzes memory and CPU usage. It automatically adjusts the memory and CPU requests.

3. Prebuilt Apps and Templates

In GKE, you can get containerized solutions along with prebuilt templates, consolidated billing, featuring portability, and simplified licensing. Such solutions are not container images. These are commercial open-source apps that elevate developers’ productivity.

4. Ease of Migration

GKE and Anthos make migration from traditional workloads easier, and they help get to the native containers. The automated approach takes out the important app elements from virtual machines. Therefore, you can insert the elements inside the container in GKE without virtual machine layers. It also works with Autopilot mode.

5. Better Security and Networking

GKE sandbox offers an additional defense layer between workloads for improving the security of containerized workloads. GKE clusters support the Network Policy of Kubernetes for restricting traffic through pod firewall rules. GKE private clusters restrict to the private or public endpoint, accessible to only a few address ranges.

Some Additional Features of GKE

Hybrid Networking - It reserves IP addresses for your cluster and allows the cluster IP addresses to coexist through the Cloud VPN of Google.

Cluster Options - The clusters can be customized to the version stability, pod traffic, availability, and isolation needs of the workloads.

Auto Repair - If a node has a health check failure, GKE begins that node’s repair process.

Auto Upgrade - It automatically keeps the cluster up-to-date with every latest Kubernetes version release.

Conclusion

Google Kubernetes Engine is excellent for automatic management and monitoring of application containers. It offers an environment where different machines can work together and make application development much easier. With a large number of features and amazing benefits, GKE is the best option to go for.