GKE Enterprise deployment options
This page shows the Google Cloud and Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE) Enterprise edition features that are available on each of the following GKE Enterprise supported environments:
- Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE) on Google Cloud
- On-premises options with Google Distributed Cloud Virtual:
- Google Distributed Cloud Edge
- GKE Multi-Cloud:
- GKE on AWS
- GKE on Azure
- GKE attached clusters, which are third-party Kubernetes clusters registered to your fleet.
Enabling GKE Enterprise
Follow the instructions in Enable GKE Enterprise to enable the Anthos API on your fleet host project. Enabling GKE Enterprise lets you register clusters to your fleet and use all the following GKE Enterprise features without incurring additional charges:
- Config Sync
- Policy Controller
- Config Controller
- Anthos Service Mesh
- Knative serving support
- Migrate to Containers
- GKE Identity Service
- Binary Authorization
- Multi Cluster Ingress
- Multi-network support for Pods
- Cloud Logging and Cloud Monitoring for GKE Enterprise system components
See the GKE pricing page for more information about enterprise tier pricing. GKE Enterprise charges are applied per managed vCPU. For standard mode GKE on Google Cloud clusters, there are no separate GKE charges. For Autopilot clusters, billing uses the Autopilot pricing model in addition to GKE Enterprise per-vCPU charges.
Pricing options for GKE on Google Cloud
If you only want to use GKE on Google Cloud, you have the following options for enterprise and multi-cluster features:
You can choose to enable GKE Enterprise to have access to all GKE Enterprise features for a single per-vCPU charge, as described above.
You can choose to not enable GKE Enterprise and pay only for the enterprise features you use, in addition to the GKE charges. Only a subset of GKE Enterprise features are available to purchase separately. See the following feature pricing guides for detailed information.
See the GKE pricing page for information for GKE pricing at the standard tier. These GKE charges include the use of the following enterprise and multi-cluster features at no additional cost:
Features available on GKE clusters on Google Cloud
GKE on Google Cloud is the most mature GKE Enterprise environment, with support for all enterprise features. For a list of key features and the benefits of running workloads on GKE, see the GKE product overview.
A small number of GKE Enterprise features aren't supported on Autopilot clusters, as shown in the following table:
Feature | Available on GKE standard clusters | Available on Autopilot clusters |
---|---|---|
Config Sync | ||
Policy Controller | ||
Config Controller | ||
Anthos Service Mesh in-cluster | ||
Managed Anthos Service Mesh | ||
Knative serving | ||
Migrate to Containers | ||
GKE Identity Service | ||
Binary Authorization | ||
Multi Cluster Ingress | ||
Multi-network support for Pods | ||
Cloud Logging and Cloud Monitoring for GKE Enterprise system components |
Features available on clusters outside of Google Cloud
The following tables show which key Google Cloud and GKE Enterprise features are available on clusters outside of Google Cloud.
For details about which versions of the GKE Enterprise features are supported on each environment, see the version support matrix.
Plugins and load balancers
GKE Enterprise clusters outside of Google Cloud use a combination of built-in GKE Enterprise capabilities along with platform-native capabilities.
Feature | GKE on VMware | GKE on Bare Metal | GKE on AWS | GKE on Azure | Attached clusters | GDC Edge |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Network plugin | ||||||
Container storage interface (CSI) & hybrid storage | ||||||
Bundled L4 load balancer | ||||||
Platform-native load balancers | N/A | N/A | N/A |
Operations and management
Feature | GKE on VMware | GKE on Bare Metal | GKE on AWS | GKE on Azure | Attached clusters | GDC Edge |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
GKE Enterprise dashboard in the Google Cloud console | ||||||
Connect Gateway | ||||||
Cloud Logging and Cloud Monitoring | ||||||
Prometheus/Grafana |
Security and Identity
Feature | GKE on VMware | GKE on Bare Metal | GKE on AWS | GKE on Azure | Attached clusters | GDC Edge |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
GKE Identity Service | ||||||
Fleet workload identity | ||||||
Cloud Audit Logs | ||||||
Binary Authorization |
Service management
Feature | GKE on VMware | GKE on Bare Metal | GKE on AWS | GKE on Azure | Attached clusters | GDC Edge |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Anthos Service Mesh in-cluster | * | |||||
Managed Anthos Service Mesh | ||||||
Service dashboards in the Google Cloud console | * | |||||
Anthos Service Mesh certificate authority | ||||||
Anthos Service Mesh integration with Certificate Authority Service |
* For the list of attached clusters that Anthos Service Mesh supports, see Supported platforms.
Configuration management
Feature | GKE on VMware | GKE on Bare Metal | GKE on AWS | GKE on Azure | Attached clusters | GDC Edge |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Policy Controller | * | |||||
Config Sync | ||||||
Config Controller |
* To install Policy Controller, AKS clusters must not have the Azure Policy add-on.
Application deployment
Feature | GKE on VMware | GKE on Bare Metal | GKE on AWS | GKE on Azure | Attached clusters | GDC Edge |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Knative serving | ||||||
Google Cloud Marketplace |
Application migration
Feature | GKE on VMware | GKE on Bare Metal | GKE on AWS | GKE on Azure | Attached clusters | GDC Edge |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Migrate to Containers |
VM management
Feature | GKE on VMware | GKE on Bare Metal | GKE on AWS | GKE on Azure | Attached clusters | GDC Edge |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
VM Runtime on Google Distributed Cloud |
What's next
- GKE Enterprise technical overview
- Version and upgrade support
- Managed Anthos Service Mesh supported features
- In-cluster Anthos Service Mesh supported features