Google Distributed Cloud, a component of Google Distributed Cloud (GDC), is software that brings Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE) to your on-premises data centers. With Google Distributed Cloud, you can create, manage, and upgrade Kubernetes clusters on your own hardware in your own data center.
New documentation structure
This is the documentation for version 1.12 of Google Distributed Cloud. The structure of this documentation is substantially different from previous versions. We've moved topics and changed some topic groupings. Here are a few of the changes you'll find:
All documentation topics have been consolidated into the main table of contents. Now, you can find reference, support, and resource topics under the Reference heading. For example, you can now find Cluster configuration field reference and release notes in the main table of contents.
We've moved the Explore topics for installing and running Google Distributed Cloud on Compute Engine VMs to the top of the left-hand navigation. These topics provide instructions for trying out Google Distributed Cloud without provisioning or configuring your own hardware.
In general, the table of contents better reflects the journey of planning your installation, setting up infrastructure, and creating clusters.
Why Google Distributed Cloud?
Google Distributed Cloud takes advantage of your existing enterprise infrastructure, and helps you modernize applications throughout their lifecycle.
Bring your own node
Google Distributed Cloud lets you deploy applications directly on your own hardware infrastructure, so it can deliver the best performance and flexibility.
Because you are using your own hardware and network, you have direct control over application scale, security, and network latency, as well as having the benefit of containerized applications through Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE) and GKE Enterprise components.
Improved performance and lowered cost
Google Distributed Cloud manages application deployment and health across existing corporate data centers for more efficient operation, and at the edge of the network, so analytic apps can run with full performance.
Without a virtual machine, Google Distributed Cloud can also manage application containers on a wide variety of performance optimized hardware types, like GPUs, and allows for direct application access to hardware.
Compatible security
Because you control your node environment, you can optimize your network, hardware, and applications to meet your specific requirements. As a result, you can directly control system security, without having to worry about your compatibility with virtual machines and operating systems.
Monitored application deployment
Google Distributed Cloud provides advanced monitoring of the health and performance of your environment, so you can more easily scale up applications while maintaining reliability despite fluctuations in workload and network traffic.
You manage monitoring, logging, and analysis of clusters and workloads through Connect.
Network latency and flexibility
Because you manage your network requirements, your network can be optimized for low latency, and this can be crucial for performance in commercial or finance analytics, as well as other enterprise or network edge applications.
Highly available
Google Distributed Cloud includes support for multiple control nodes in a cluster, so if a master node goes down you can still administer your environment.
Secure design and control
Your infrastructure security can be customized for your own needs, with minimal connections to outside resources. Most importantly, there is no additional VM complexity when deploying security systems, and you maintain complete OS transparency when interacting with existing security systems.
Google Distributed Cloud also works with lightweight secure connections to Google APIs, and allows you to manage clusters and applications from a central place with Connect and Cloud Monitoring. This centralization also helps keep your deployments running smoothly, and lets Google support troubleshoot issues more effectively.
Preflight checks on installation
Google Distributed Cloud runs on open source and enterprise Linux systems, and on a minimal hardware infrastructure, and so is flexible in your environment. Google Distributed Cloud also includes a variety of pre-flight checks to help ensure successful configurations and installations.
Application deployment and load balancing
Google Distributed Cloud includes Layer 4 and Layer 7 load balancing mechanisms at cluster creation.
Improved etcd reliability
To monitor the size and defragment etcd databases, Google Distributed Cloud
control planes include an etcddefrag pod to reclaim storage from large
etcd databases and recover etcd when disk space is exceeded.
Additional resources
Google Distributed Cloud is a feature of Anthos. For an overview of the Anthos product and information on how to contact sales, see Anthos.
For a deeper discussion of Anthos features and how they work together, see the Anthos technical overview.
For pricing information, see Anthos pricing.