Service Directory for GKE overview

Service Directory for Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE) provides a single view of all services across all of your GKE deployments and beyond. You can add various types of GKE services, annotate them, and then see those services in Service Directory.

Service Directory for GKE offers the following features:

  • It lets you discover services through gRPC and HTTP, and resolve services over DNS using Service Directory DNS zones. The Service Directory and Cloud DNS integration lets you configure a Service Directory DNS zone.
  • Service Directory registers services outside of GKE, allowing GKE and non-GKE services to easily discover each other.
  • Service Directory enforces IAM permission and VPC Service Controls checks to ensure proper security and privacy of customer data.
  • You can configure Service Directory for GKE with Autopilot GKE clusters or Standard GKE clusters. For information about the two modes, see Choose a GKE mode of operation.

To learn about how to configure Service Directory to automatically register your GKE services with Service Directory, see Configuring Service Directory for GKE.

Service mapping

When you register a service with Service Directory, a service is created in the Google Cloud fleet project using the name of the Kubernetes namespace and region of the GKE cluster. The following table describes how the properties on the GKE service are mapped to the properties on the created service in Service Directory for all GKE service types.

Top level properties

Service Directory property GKE property
Project Fleet project
Region Region of the cluster
Namespace Kubernetes namespace

LoadBalancer service type

The following example shows how a GKE LoadBalancer service is mapped to Service Directory. The Service Directory service exists in a namespace with the same name as the Kubernetes namespace in the fleet project and region of the GKE cluster.

Service Directory property GKE property
Service name Service name
Endpoint name Auto-generated by Service Directory Controller
Endpoint IP address LoadBalancer ingress
Endpoint port LoadBalancer service port
Endpoint network VPC network of the cluster

The following is an example of a GKE LoadBalancer service:

apiVersion: v1
kind: Service
metadata:
  name: hello-app
  annotations:
    cloud.google.com/load-balancer-type: "Internal"
  labels:
    app: hello-app
    sd-import: "true"
spec:
  ports:
  - port: 80
    targetPort: 8080
    protocol: TCP
  selector:
    app: hello-app
  type: LoadBalancer
status:
  loadBalancer:
    ingress:
    - ip: 10.140.0.5

The following is an example of a Service Directory service:

service:
  endpoints:
  - address: 10.140.0.5
    metadata:
       cloud.google.com/load-balancer-type: "Internal"
    name: projects/my-project/locations/us-central1/namespaces/default/services/hello-app/endpoints/gke-hello-cluster-12345
    port: 80
    network: projects/my-project/locations/global/networks/default
  name: projects/my-project/locations/us-central1/namespaces/default/services/hello-app

NodePort service type

The following example shows how a GKE NodePort Service is mapped to Service Directory. The Service Directory service exists in a namespace with the same name as the Kubernetes namespace in the project of the hub and region of the GKE cluster.

Service Directory property GKE property
Service name Service name
Endpoint name Auto-generated by Service Directory Controller
Endpoint IP address Node internal IP address for each node that runs a pod for the service
Endpoint port Static node port
Endpoint network VPC network of the cluster

The following is an example of a GKE NodePort service:

apiVersion: v1
kind: Service
metadata:
  name: hello-app
  annotations:
    key1: "value1"
spec:
  ports:
  - nodePort: 30007
    port: 80
    targetPort: 8080
    protocol: TCP
  selector:
    app: hello-app
  type: NodePort

The following is an example of GKE nodes:

apiVersion: v1
items:
- apiVersion: v1
  kind: Node
  metadata:
    name: gke-hello-cluster-default-pool-a40cbab6-d2rr
  status:
    addresses:
    - address: 10.142.0.27
      type: InternalIP
    - address: 34.73.248.170
- apiVersion: v1
  kind: Node
  metadata:
    name: gke-hello-cluster-default-pool-a40cbab6-kb38
  status:
    addresses:
    - address: 10.142.0.29
      type: InternalIP
    - address: 35.196.219.215
      type: ExternalIP
- apiVersion: v1
  kind: Node
  metadata:
    name: gke-hello-cluster-default-pool-a40cbab6-x34q
  status:
    addresses:
    - address: 10.142.0.28
      type: InternalIP
    - address: 34.75.202.26
      type: ExternalIP

The following is an example of a Service Directory service:

service:
  endpoints:
  - address: 10.142.0.27
    metadata:
      key1: value1
    name: projects/my-project/locations/us-central1/namespaces/default/services/hello-app/endpoints/gke-hello-cluster-12345
    port: 30007
    network: projects/my-project/locations/global/networks/default
  - address: 10.142.0.28
    metadata:
      key1: value1
    name: projects/my-project/locations/us-central1/namespaces/default/services/hello-app/endpoints/gke-hello-cluster-23456
    port: 30007
    network: projects/my-project/locations/global/networks/default
  - address: 10.142.0.29
    metadata:
      key1: value1
    name: projects/my-project/locations/us-central1/namespaces/default/services/hello-app/endpoints/gke-hello-cluster-34567
    port: 30007
    network: projects/my-project/locations/global/networks/default
  name: projects/my-project/locations/us-central1/namespaces/default/services/hello-app

ClusterIP service

The following example shows how a GKE ClusterIP service is mapped to Service Directory. The Service Directory service exists in a namespace with the same name as the Kubernetes namespace in the fleet project and region of the GKE cluster.

Service Directory property GKE property
Service name Service name
Endpoint name Auto-generated by Service Directory Controller
Endpoint IP address ClusterIP
Endpoint port Service port
Endpoint network VPC network of the cluster

The following is an example of a GKE ClusterIP service:

apiVersion: v1
kind: Service
metadata:
  name: hello-app
  annotations:
    key1: "value1"
  labels:
    app: hello-app
    sd-import: "true"
spec:
  clusterIP: 10.15.254.17
  ports:
  - port: 80
    targetPort: 8080
    protocol: TCP
  selector:
    app: hello-app
  type: ClusterIP

The following is an example of a Service Directory service:

service:
  endpoints:
  - address: 10.15.254.17
    metadata:
      key1: value1
    name: projects/my-project/locations/us-central1/namespaces/default/services/hello-app/endpoints/gke-hello-cluster-12345
    port: 80
    network: projects/my-project/locations/global/networks/default
  name: projects/my-project/locations/us-central1/namespaces/default/services/hello-app

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