GKE on Bare Metal supports a wide variety of systems running on the hardware that the target operating system distributions support. An GKE on Bare Metal configuration can run on minimal hardware, or on multiple machines to provide flexibility, availability, and performance.
Regardless of your GKE on Bare Metal configuration, your nodes and clusters must have enough CPU, RAM, and storage resources to meet the needs of clusters and the workloads that you're running.
Minimum and recommended CPU, RAM, and storage requirements
When you install GKE on Bare Metal, you can create different types of clusters:
- A user cluster that runs workloads.
- An admin cluster that creates and controls user clusters to run workloads.
- A standalone cluster is a single cluster that can manage and run workloads, but a standalone cluster can't create or manage user clusters.
- A hybrid cluster can manage and run workloads, and a hybrid cluster can also create and manage additional user clusters.
In addition to cluster type, you can choose from the following installation profiles in terms of resource requirements:
Default: The default profile has standard system resource requirements, and you can use it for all cluster types.
Edge: The edge profile has significantly reduced system resource requirements. Use of this profile is recommended for edge devices with limited resources. You can only use the edge profile for standalone clusters.
Resource requirements for all cluster types using the default profile
The following table describes the minimum and recommended hardware requirements that GKE on Bare Metal needs to operate and manage admin, hybrid, user, and standalone clusters using the default profile:
| Resource | Minimum | Recommended |
|---|---|---|
| CPUs / vCPUs | 4 core | 8 core |
| RAM | 16 GB | 32 GB |
| Storage | 128 GB | 256 GB |
Resource requirements for standalone clusters using the edge profile
The following table describes the minimum and recommended hardware requirements that GKE on Bare Metal needs to operate and manage standalone clusters using the edge profile:
| Resource | Minimum | Recommended |
|---|---|---|
| CPUs / vCPUs | 2 core | 4 core |
| RAM | Ubuntu: 4 GB CentOS/RHEL: 6 GB |
Ubuntu: 8 GB CentOS/RHEL: 12 GB |
| Storage | 128 GB | 256 GB |
To configure standalone clusters using the edge profile, follow these best practices:
Run
bmctlon a separate workstation. If you must runbmctlon the target cluster node, you need 2 GB of memory to meet the minimum requirements. For example, you require 6 GB for Ubuntu and 8 GB for CentOS/Redhat.Set
MaxPodsPerNodeto 110. The cluster runs no more than 30 user pods per node on average. You might need extra resources for a higherMaxPodsPerNodeconfiguration or run more than 30 user pods per node.Use
containerdas the container runtime. You might need extra resources to run with the Docker container runtime.Kubevirt components are not considered in this minimum resource configuration. Kubevirt requires additional resources depending on the number of VMs deployed in the cluster.
Number of machines needed
GKE on Bare Metal requires at least one machine, which serves as both workstation and cluster node. For highly available (HA) nodes and improved performance, we suggest a realistic minimum of five machines meeting the recommended resource requirements.
Additional storage requirements
GKE on Bare Metal doesn't provide any storage resources. You must provision and configure the required storage on your system.
For detailed storage requirements, see the Installation prerequisites overview.
For more information about how to configure the storage required, see Configuring storage for GKE on Bare Metal.