This page explains how you can run Arm workloads on Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE).
Overview
You can run Arm workloads in GKE Autopilot clusters
using the Performance
or Scale-Out
compute
classes,
or in GKE Standard
clusters using the C4A machine series
(C4A) or Tau T2A machine
series (T2A). You can run
single-architecture Arm images or multi-architecture (multi-arch) images
compatible with both x86 and Arm processors. To learn about the benefits of Arm,
see Arm VMs on Compute.
See the following guides for more information about choosing workloads to deploy on Arm and preparing those workloads for deployment:
- Choosing workloads to run on Arm: C4A nodes provide Arm-based compute which achieves consistently high performance for your most performance-sensitive Arm-based workloads. T2A nodes are appropriate for more-flexible workloads, or workloads which rely on horizontal scale-out. To learn more about what types of workloads work well with each of these machine series, see the table in General-purpose machine family for Compute Engine.
- Deploying across architectures: With GKE, you can use
multi-arch images to deploy one image manifest across nodes with different
architectures, including Arm.
- To ensure that your container image is Arm-compatible and can run on your targeted architectures, see Build multi-architecture images for Arm workloads.
- To follow a tutorial for using multi-arch images to deploy across architectures, see Migrate x86 application on GKE to multi-arch with Arm.
- Preparing Arm workloads for deployment: Once you have an Arm-compatible
image, use node
affinity
rules and
node selectors
to make sure your workload is scheduled to nodes with a compatible
architecture type.
- Autopilot clusters: see Deploy Autopilot workloads on Arm architecture.
- Standard clusters: see Prepare an Arm workload for deployment.
Requirements and limitations
- To create a cluster which uses C4A nodes, you must use version 1.31.1-gke.1678000 or later.
- Arm nodes are available in Google Cloud locations that support Arm architecture. For details, see Available regions and zones.
- You can use Local SSDs with C4A nodes in Preview.
- GKE doesn't support the following features with C4A nodes:
- GKE doesn't support the following features with T2A nodes:
What's next
- Create clusters and node pools with Arm nodes
- Build multi-architecture images for Arm workloads
- Prepare an Arm workload for deployment
- Migrate x86 application on GKE to multi-arch with Arm