Setting up GKE Enterprise

This section shows you how to set up Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE) Enterprise edition on your chosen platform or platforms.

This page is for IT administrators and Operators who set up, monitor, and manage the lifecycle of the cloud infrastructure, including backup infrastructure. To learn more about common roles and example tasks that we reference in Google Cloud content, see Common GKE Enterprise user roles and tasks.

You can see details of the available features for each deployment option in our Deployment options guide.

GKE Enterprise requirements

Regardless of your installation option, you need the following to use GKE Enterprise:

• A Google Cloud project. You might have access to a project if your company already uses Google Cloud. A project is required to use Google Cloud APIs and enable billing.

• You must enable GKE Enterprise in the project that you want to use.

• The clusters you want to use with GKE Enterprise must be enrolled in the enterprise tier:

  • For GKE clusters on Google Cloud, you select whether you want to add the extra tier of features on a per cluster basis. Once a cluster is enrolled in the GKE Enterprise tier, you are entitled to use all available enterprise features with it. To use the full range of GKE Enterprise features, you must also register the cluster to a fleet, though you can use a subset of enterprise features without fleets.
  • GKE clusters outside Google Cloud (on other public clouds or on-premises) are enterprise-tier and fleet members by default, and cannot change tier.

All enterprise-tier clusters incur per-vCPU GKE Enterprise charges. You can learn more about GKE Enterprise pricing in our Pricing guide.

Note: Per-cluster entitlement to GKE Enterprise features was introduced in November 2024. Clusters created or registered before that date that use GKE Enterprise as part of their fleet membership are automatically enterprise-tier clusters. The only change is that you can now downgrade these clusters to the standard tier without removing them from their fleet, or remove them from the fleet without losing their enterprise entitlement. However, if you choose the latter option you will lose the ability to use fleet-enabled enterprise features.

Additional APIs and permissions may be required for particular installation options and to enable GKE Enterprise features. For details, see the relevant prerequisite and installation guides.

For clusters on Google Cloud only, you can also choose to not enable GKE Enterprise and pay separately for a subset of enterprise features, in addition to your GKE charges. You can see a complete list of supported enterprise features for each option in Deployment options.

Set up GKE Enterprise

For each environment where you want to use GKE Enterprise, follow the appropriate setup guides, and then enable your chosen GKE Enterprise features.

• Enable GKE Enterprise: Learn how to enable GKE Enterprise for your project and clusters, with convenient setup using the Google Cloud console. Start here if you want to use GKE Enterprise with clusters on Google Cloud.

  Enable GKE Enterprise

• Set up Google Distributed Cloud (on-premises): Google Distributed Cloud has two software-only installation options: on VMware or on bare metal.

  Set up GKE Enterprise on premises

• Set up GKE Enterprise on other public clouds: GKE Enterprise can manage clusters on other public clouds, letting you use consistent cluster management and GKE Enterprise features in a multicloud or hybrid deployment. Installation on AWS and Azure is supported, with the option to add attached clusters on AWS and Azure.

  Set up GKE Enterprise on other public clouds

Add third-party Kubernetes clusters

While GKE clusters form the foundation of GKE Enterprise, you can also add non-managed Kubernetes clusters to GKE Enterprise. With attached clusters, you can take advantage of a subset of GKE Enterprise features on your existing systems even without a full migration to GKE. Attaching clusters to your fleet lets you view them in the Google Cloud console along with your GKE clusters, and enable a subset of GKE Enterprise features on them.

Set up GKE Enterprise attached clusters

Disable GKE Enterprise

You can choose to disable GKE Enterprise for a project. This removes your entitlement to use GKE Enterprise features in that project.

Disable GKE Enterprise