Google Distributed Cloud is a portfolio of hardware and software solutions that extend Google Cloud infrastructure to the edge and into your data centers.
Workloads such as cellular network infrastructure, facial recognition, and other latency-sensitive, processing-intensive applications exceed the latency and bandwidth capabilities of a traditional cloud service. For such workloads, Distributed Cloud connected offers fully integrated hardware and software solutions that bring the capabilities of Google Cloud directly to your premises. Google provides, deploys, operates, and maintains the dedicated Distributed Cloud connected hardware and software.
Google Distributed Cloud connected
Distributed Cloud connected is an integrated hardware and software solution that runs general-purpose and specialized network function-enabled workloads. A Distributed Cloud connected rack consists of 6-12 server machines and two top-of-rack (ToR) switches that interconnect the machines with your local network. The nodes that execute your workloads run exclusively on this hardware. If you order a GPU-enabled Distributed Cloud connected configuration, you can also run GPU-based workloads.
The Distributed Cloud connected hardware runs worker nodes grouped into node pools, which you assign to clusters within your Distributed Cloud connected Cloud project. You run workloads in containers and virtual machines. Google Cloud remotely runs and manages a Kubernetes control plane that governs these nodes.
Google Distributed Cloud software only
Google Distributed Cloud software extends Google Cloud's infrastructure and services into your data center, with Google-provided software running on your own hardware. Google Distributed Cloud software is based on Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE), with its own Kubernetes package that extends GKE for use in an on-premises environment. With Distributed Cloud you can create, manage, and upgrade GKE clusters on your own premises while using Google Cloud features, and deploy and operate containerized applications on your clusters at scale using Google's infrastructure.
Google Distributed Cloud software can be installed on either VMware or bare metal:
Google Distributed Cloud for bare metal runs on physical machines, instead of virtual machines, so you can manage application containers on a wide variety of performance-optimized hardware types, like GPUs. Running Google Distributed Cloud on bare metal also allows for direct application access to hardware.
Google Distributed Cloud for VMware runs on your premises in a vSphere environment. vSphere is VMware's virtualization platform.