This page describes the CPU, RAM, and storage requirements for GKE on-prem installation.
When you install GKE on-prem, you create:
- An admin workstation
- An admin cluster
- One or more user clusters
The admin cluster runs the GKE on-prem infrastructure, and the user clusters run your workloads.
Your vSphere environment must have enough storage, CPU, and RAM resources to fulfill the needs of your admin workstation, your admin cluster, and your user clusters. The resource needs of your user clusters depend on the type of workloads you intend to run.
Storage, vCPU, and RAM requirements for the admin workstation
The physical ESXi hosts in your datacenter must provide enough CPU and RAM to support needs of your admin workstation. Also, your vSphere environment must provide enough storage to fulfill the needs of your admin workstation. The admin workstation has the following resource needs:
- 4 vCPU
- 8192 MB RAM
- 50 GB of virtual disk space
Storage, vCPU, and RAM requirements for the admin cluster
The physical ESXi hosts in your datacenter must provide enough CPU and RAM to fulfill the needs of your admin cluster. Also, your vSphere environment must provide enough storage to fulfill the needs of the admin cluster.
The admin cluster has one or more associated user clusters. For each associated user cluster, the admin cluster has one or three nodes. These nodes run the control plane components for the user cluster, and they are called user cluster control plane nodes.
If a user cluster is highly available (HA), then the admin cluster has three control plane nodes for that user cluster. If a user cluster is not HA, then the admin cluster has one control plane node for that user cluster.
The admin cluster has the following storage needs:
A 100 GB virtual disk to store object data.
A 40 GB virtual disk for each node. This includes the nodes that serve as user cluster control planes.
10 GB of additional virtual storage for each user cluster control plane node to fulfill PVCs created for audit logs.
5 GB of additional virtual storage for each user cluster control plane node to fulfill PVCs created for etcd object data, and 5GB of additional virtual storage for each user cluster to fulfill PVCs created for etcd event data.
450 GB of virtual storage for Google Cloud Observability to buffer logs and metrics during a network outage.
If the Prometheus and Grafana add-on is enabled, 506 GB of virtual storage for Prometheus to store metrics data for 4 days.
The following table describes the storage, vCPU, and RAM requirements for nodes in the admin cluster:
| Name | System prefix | Configuration field | Specifications | Purpose |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Admin cluster control plane | gke-admin-master |
N/A |
|
Runs the admin control plane in the admin cluster. |
| Add-ons VMs | gke-admin-node |
N/A |
Two VMs, each of which has the following requirements:
|
Run the admin control plane's add-ons in the admin cluster. |
| User cluster control plane | [USER_CLUSTER_NAME]-user-N |
usercluster.masternode |
For each user cluster, one or three VMs. Each VM has the following requirements:
|
Each user cluster has its own control plane. User control plane VMs run in the admin cluster. You can choose to create one or three user control planes for an individual user cluster. |
Storage, vCPU, and RAM requirements for a user cluster
For each user cluster that you intend to create, the physical ESXi hosts in your data center must provide enough CPU and RAM to fulfill the needs of the user cluster. Also, for each user cluster that you intend to create, your vSphere environment must provide enough storage to fulfill the needs of the cluster.
A user cluster has the following storage needs:
A 40 GB virtual disk for each node.
450 GB of virtual storage for Google Cloud Observability. Google Cloud Observability uses this storage to buffer logs and metrics during a network outage.
If the Prometheus and Grafana add-on is enabled, 506 GB of virtual storage for Prometheus to store metrics data for 4 days.
The following table describes default values for storage, CPU, and RAM for each node in a user cluster. Depending on the needs of your workloads, you might want to adjust the values. You can specify values for CPU and RAM when you create a cluster configuration file:
| Name | System prefix | Configuration field | Specifications | Purpose |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| User cluster worker nodes | [USER_CLUSTER_NAME]-user |
usercluster.workernode |
These are the default values for an individual worker node:
|
A user cluster node is a virtual machine where workloads run. When you create a user cluster, you decide how many nodes it should run. The configuration required for each node depends on the workloads you run. For information on the maximum number of clusters and nodes you can create, see Quotas and limits. |
Example of storage, vCPU, and RAM requirements
Suppose you intend to create the following clusters:
An admin cluster
A user cluster where you think each node will need 40 GB of disk space, 6 vCPU, and 16384 MB of RAM. This user cluster will have 20 nodes. You want the control plane for this user cluster to be highly available, so there will be three nodes in the admin cluster that run control plane components for this user cluster.
A second user cluster where you think the default storage, vCPU, and RAM values will be appropriate. This user cluster will have eight nodes. You do not need the control plane for this user cluster to by highly available, so there will be only one node in the admin cluster that runs control plane components for this user cluster.
The admin cluster has a control plane node, two nodes for add-ons, three nodes for the control plane of your first user cluster, and one node for the control plane of your second user cluster. So the admin cluster has seven nodes.
Each node in the admin cluster requires 4 vCPU and 40 GB of disk space. Three of the admin cluster nodes require 16384 MB of RAM, and four of the admin cluster nodes require 8192 MB of RAM. The admin cluster needs a 100 GB persistent disk to store its etcd data. The HA user cluster requires 3 x 10 GB disk to store its audit logs, 3 x 5 GB disk to store its etcd object data, and 5 GB disk to store its etcd event data. The non-HA user cluster requires 10 GB to store its audit logs, 5 GB disk to store its etcd object data, and 5 GB disk to store its etcd event data. Also, the admin cluster requires 450 GB of disk space to fulfill PVCs created by Google Cloud Observability.
The following table summarizes the storage, vCPU, and RAM requirements for the admin cluster:
| Example: Admin cluster requirements | ||
|---|---|---|
| Storage | 7 x 40 + 3 x 10 + 3 x 5 + 5 + 10 + 5 + 5 + 100 + 450 | 900 GB |
| vCPU | 7 x 4 | 28 vCPU |
| RAM | 3 x 16384 + 4 x 8192 | 81920 MB |
Each node in the first user cluster requires 40 GB of disk space, 6 vCPU, and 16384 MB of RAM. Also, the first user cluster requires 450 GB of disk space to fulfill PVCs created by Google Cloud Observability.
The following table summarizes the storage, vCPU, and RAM requirements for the first user cluster:
| Example: First user cluster requirements | ||
|---|---|---|
| Storage | 20 x 40 + 450 | 1250 GB |
| vCPU | 20 x 6 | 120 vCPU |
| RAM | 20 x 16384 | 327680 MB |
Each node in the second user cluster requires 40 GB of disk space, 4 vCPU, and 8192 MB of RAM. Also, the second user cluster requires 450 GB of disk space to fulfill PVCs created by Google Cloud Observability.
The following table summarizes the storage, vCPU, and RAM requirements for the second user cluster:
| Example: Second user cluster requirements | ||
|---|---|---|
| Storage | 8 x 40 + 450 | 770 GB |
| vCPU | 8 x 4 | 32 vCPU |
| RAM | 8 x 8192 | 65536 MB |
Total requirements:
| Example: Total requirements | |
|---|---|
| Storage | 2920 GB |
| vCPU | 180 vCPU |
| RAM | 475136 MB |