Get support
This page shows you how to get support for Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE) Enterprise edition.
This page is for IT administrators and Operators who respond to alerts and pages when service level objectives (SLOs) aren't met or applications fail and debug to find root cause. To learn more about common roles and example tasks that we reference in Google Cloud content, see Common GKE Enterprise user roles and tasks.
Get a Google support package
Google Cloud offers a variety of support packages to accommodate your support needs. All Cloud Customer Care packages include support for GKE Enterprise. If you have an existing Google Cloud Support package, you already have support for GKE Enterprise, including GKE and Google Distributed Cloud.
For more information, see the Cloud Customer Care documentation.
View product specific support
To learn about support for the components included in GKE Enterprise, see the following support pages:
- GKE
- Google Distributed Cloud (software-only) on VMware
- Google Distributed Cloud (software-only) on bare metal
- GKE on AWS
- GKE on Azure
- Config Sync
- Policy Controller
- Cloud Service Mesh
- Knative serving
- Binary Authorization
Support for GKE attached clusters
Your Google Cloud support includes support for any GKE Enterprise components deployed on GKE Enterprise attached clusters, though not for the clusters themselves.
Giving Cloud Customer Care access to your clusters
When troubleshooting a problem, you might sometimes need to give Cloud Customer Care temporary read-only access to cluster snapshot data or to the cluster itself to help triage your issue. Find out how to do this in Giving Cloud Customer Care access to your clusters or Giving Cloud Customer Care access to your snapshots.
Version Support Policy
The objective of this Version Support Policy is to give you the flexibility to schedule upgrades when it meets your business needs, while balancing the rapid evolution of both Kubernetes and GKE Enterprise.
Google publishes a new major (for example, x in version x.y) or minor (for example, y in version x.y) GKE Enterprise release three times a year around the months of April, August, and December, with a monthly patch release (for example, z in version x.y.z) for supported minor versions. The Kubernetes community might revise their version support calendar at times, which might impact the GKE Enterprise release and support schedule.
Google supports each GKE Enterprise minor version for the later of:
- 12 months after the initial release of the minor version.
- The release of the third subsequent minor version.
We encourage you to maintain your GKE Enterprise environment with the product's latest major or minor release. You can find out about the latest supported versions for each component and how to upgrade in the component's documentation.
This version support policy includes:
- Break/fix support from Cloud Customer Care.
- CVE security vulnerabilities to Kubernetes and related components.
- General patches to Kubernetes and related components.
- CVE security vulnerabilities to Ubuntu or Container-Optimized OS.
- General patches to Ubuntu or Container-Optimized OS.
GKE Enterprise support period
The following table shows the supported minor releases for GKE Enterprise and the earliest end-of-life (EOL) dates:
| GKE Enterprise version | GKE Enterprise release date | End of life date* |
|---|---|---|
| 1.30 | 2024-10 | 2025-10 or 1.33 release date |
| 1.29 | 2024-05 | 2025-05 or 1.32 release date |
| 1.28† | 2023-12 | 2024-12 or 1.31 release date |
All GKE Enterprise clusters share the same support period, regardless of their exact release date. To learn more about the support period for other GKE Enterprise components, see the individual product documentation. To learn more about version compatibility, see GKE Enterprise version and upgrade support.
Long-term support with the Extended channel is available at no additional cost if the project has enabled GKE Enterprise, but only for GKE clusters on Google Cloud. This support option is not available for other GKE Enterprise cluster options outside Google Cloud.
* The EOL will be the later of these two dates.
† We have aligned our GKE Enterprise version numbering with the GKE version number starting with Anthos 1.17, which is now GKE Enterprise 1.28. This is a numbering change only and upgrades from 1.16 to 1.28 are carried out using the same process as upgrades between prior minor releases.
Shared responsibility model
Running a business-critical production application on GKE Enterprise requires multiple parties to carry different responsibilities. These responsibilities are described at GKE Enterprise shared responsibility.