Google Distributed Cloud overview

Google Distributed Cloud, a component of Google Distributed Cloud (GDC), is software that brings Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE) to on-premises data centers. With Google Distributed Cloud, you can create, manage, and upgrade Kubernetes clusters on your own premises.

Google Distributed Cloud runs on your premises in a vSphere environment. vSphere is VMware's virtualization platform. The two main components of vSphere are ESXi and vCenter Server.

New documentation structure for 1.11

This is the documentation for version 1.11 of Google Distributed Cloud. The structure of this documentation is substantially different from what it has been in previous versions:

  • The sequence of quickstart topics has been condensed into two topics under the Get started heading.

  • The load balancing topics are now part of the infrastructure section.

  • Configuration files are now under the Reference heading.

  • In general, the table of contents better reflects the journey of planning your installation, setting up infrastructure, and creating clusters.

Getting Google Distributed Cloud

Google Distributed Cloud is a feature of GKE Enterprise. For an overview of the GKE Enterprise product and information on how to contact sales, see Anthos.

For a deeper discussion of GKE Enterprise features and how they work together, see the GKE Enterprise technical overview.

For pricing information, see Anthos pricing.

Installing Google Distributed Cloud

To install Google Distributed Cloud, you create an admin cluster and one or more user clusters. Before you create your clusters, you need to have a vSphere environment and a Google Cloud project

For a full overview of the installation process, see the installation overview.

Versions

To learn about Google Distributed Cloud versions, see Version history.