We introduced highly available masters for Google Kubernetes Engine earlier this fall with our alpha launch of regional clusters. Today, regional clusters are in beta and ready to use at scale in Kubernetes Engine.
Regional clusters allow you to create a Kubernetes Engine cluster with a multi-master, highly available control plane that helps ensure higher cluster uptime. With regional clusters in Kubernetes Engine, you gain:
- Resilience from single zone failure - Because your masters and nodes are available across a region rather than a single zone, your Kubernetes cluster is still fully functional if a zone goes down.
- No downtime during master upgrades - Kubernetes Engine minimizes downtime during all Kubernetes master upgrades, but with a single master, some downtime is inevitable. By using regional clusters, the control plane remains online and available, even during upgrades.
How regional clusters work
When you create a regional cluster, Kubernetes Engine spreads your masters and nodes across three zones in a region, ensuring that you can experience a zonal failure and still remain online.
By default, Kubernetes Engine creates three nodes in each zone (giving you nine total nodes), but you can change the number of nodes in your cluster with the
--num-nodes flag.
$ gcloud beta container clusters create my-regional-cluster --region=us-central1 --num-nodes=2Or you can use the Cloud Console to create a regional cluster:
Kubernetes Engine regional clusters are offered at no additional charge during the beta period. We will announce pricing as part of general availability. Until then, please send any feedback to [email protected].
Meet the Kubernetes Engine team at #KubeCon
This week the Kubernetes community gathers in Austin for the annual #KubeCon conference. The Google Cloud team will host various activities throughout the week. Join us for parties, workshops, and more than a dozen talks by experts. More info and ways to RSVP at g.co/kubecon.
