GKE Cluster Provisioning and Management

Advanced20 min

Create a Google Kubernetes Engine cluster, connect kubectl, deploy workloads, and configure autoscaling.

Prerequisites

-gcloud CLI installed
-kubectl installed
-GCP project with billing enabled
-Basic Kubernetes knowledge

Steps

Enable the GKE API

Activates the Kubernetes Engine API for the project.

$ gcloud services enable container.googleapis.com

Create a GKE Autopilot cluster

Autopilot manages nodes automatically. You only define pods and GKE handles the infrastructure.

$ gcloud container clusters create-auto mycluster --region us-central1

Use Autopilot for most workloads. Use Standard mode only when you need node-level control.

Cluster creation takes 5-10 minutes.

Get cluster credentials

Configures kubectl to communicate with the new GKE cluster.

$ gcloud container clusters get-credentials mycluster --region us-central1

Deploy a workload

Deploys a sample app and exposes it through a Google Cloud Load Balancer.

$ kubectl create deployment hello-app --image=us-docker.pkg.dev/google-samples/containers/gke/hello-app:1.0 && kubectl expose deployment hello-app --type=LoadBalancer --port=80 --target-port=8080

Check the external IP

Waits for the LoadBalancer to provision an external IP address.

$ kubectl get service hello-app --watch

Scale the deployment

Scales the deployment to three replicas for higher availability.

$ kubectl scale deployment hello-app --replicas=3

Full Script

full-script.sh

# GKE cluster provisioning and management
gcloud services enable container.googleapis.com
gcloud container clusters create-auto mycluster --region us-central1
gcloud container clusters get-credentials mycluster --region us-central1
kubectl create deployment hello-app --image=us-docker.pkg.dev/google-samples/containers/gke/hello-app:1.0
kubectl expose deployment hello-app --type=LoadBalancer --port=80 --target-port=8080
kubectl get service hello-app
kubectl scale deployment hello-app --replicas=3

FAQ

Discussion

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# GKE cluster provisioning and management gcloud services enable container.googleapis.com gcloud container clusters create-auto mycluster --region us-central1 gcloud container clusters get-credentials mycluster --region us-central1 kubectl create deployment hello-app --image=us-docker.pkg.dev/google-samples/containers/gke/hello-app:1.0 kubectl expose deployment hello-app --type=LoadBalancer --port=80 --target-port=8080 kubectl get service hello-app kubectl scale deployment hello-app --replicas=3