Putting the ‘ease’ in Kubernetes with latest enhancements to GKE
Aparna Sinha
Director of Product Management
Since its launch in 2015, Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE) continues to set the standard for the industry on what it means to provide a managed Kubernetes service that puts security, reliability, and ease of use first. This innovation is driven by feedback from all Kubernetes users and GKE customers. Thank you for trusting us to provide the platform that powers your business transformation.
Today, on the first day of KubeCon EU, we want to update you on what’s new in GKE.
Your Kubernetes your way with GKE
Move quickly and reliably with GKE release channels
As a Google Cloud customer, you have a wide range of requirements for how to use your clusters and when to upgrade them. GKE has always abstracted away the complexity of managing Kubernetes releases by automating the upgrade and delivery of new versions to your clusters. When you create a cluster on GKE, your cluster is created with the default certified version in the GKE fleet, and you can leverage the auto-upgrade capability to keep your clusters up to date with bug fixes and security patches.
Starting this month in alpha, GKE will offer release channels, allowing you to upgrade your clusters in a way that fits your business. We’ll offer three channels; Rapid, Regular, and Stable, each with different version maturity and stability, so you can subscribe your cluster to an update stream that matches your risk tolerance and business requirements.
We’re excited to introduce the first of the release channels, the Rapid channel. You can subscribe your clusters to the Rapid channel starting now, and get early access to the latest Kubernetes version as it matures to Regular, and finally to the Stable channel.
Try out Windows Server Containers in Rapid Channel
We heard you—being able to easily deploy Windows containers is critical for enterprises looking to modernize existing applications and move them towards cloud-native technology. In Kubernetes 1.14, the upstream open-source community announced support for Windows nodes, and we’re pleased to offer Windows Server Containers in Kubernetes 1.14 on GKE. You’ll be able to experiment with Windows Server Containers and modernize your existing Windows applications from the new Rapid channel in June.
Be in the know with Stackdriver Kubernetes Engine Monitoring
Today, we’re excited to announce general availability of Stackdriver Kubernetes Engine Monitoring, a tool that gives you GKE observability (metrics, logs, events, and metadata) all in one place, to help provide faster time-to-resolution for issues, no matter the scale.
Kubernetes Engine Monitoring gives you a comprehensive view into your Kubernetes environment, including infrastructure, application and service data with speed and reliability. It comes pre-integrated with GKE, so you can use it to improve the reliability of the services running there from the get-go.
"Stackdriver Kubernetes Engine Monitoring gives us complete visibility into our GKE environment, is easy to use and fosters a meaningful conversation between SREs and Engineering on the reliability of our applications. We now have a full view across all of our clusters and can dig into further details as needed--allowing us to diagnose issues faster and keep our applications available to users." - Pardeep Sandhu, Site Reliability Engineer, Schlumberger
Develop faster with Kubernetes apps on GKE
It’s easy to deploy integrated Kubernetes applications to GKE directly from the Google Cloud Platform (GCP) Marketplace, bringing an ecosystem of open-source and commercial applications to you in the cloud and on-prem in a simple, integrated way. Kubernetes apps also support organizations in their application modernization journey, by helping them deploy containerized applications on-prem before moving them to the cloud. Get started today, and encourage your ISV partners to offer their solutions as Kubernetes apps from GCP Marketplace.
At Google Cloud our users are the inspiration for everything we do. Seeing how you use GKE to transform your business inspires us.
Transforming businesses with GKE
The momentum we see across a variety of industries and customer segments is a testament to the value of Kubernetes and GKE. On the occasion of the five year anniversary of Kubernetes, we want to thank and celebrate some of our customers, who are transforming their businesses through GKE.
Leading the way to cloud-native apps
Whether you want to modernize your environment, or build cloud-native applications from scratch, consider choosing GKE as your container management and orchestration foundation.
To celebrate Kubernetes' 5th birthday, we're giving away a free month of learning through our new Coursera course, Architecting with GKE†. And if you’re at KubeCon, be sure to check out our talks, and stop by the booth to say hi!
† Offer valid until 30 September 2019, while supplies last.
