How does GKE handle scalability and high availability?

Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE) is a managed container orchestration platform that provides a reliable and scalable solution for deploying, managing, and scaling containerized applications. GKE offers a wide range of features to ensure scalability and high availability of applications running on the platform.

In this blog article, we will explore some of the key features of GKE that can achieve scalability and high availability.

Autoscaling

GKE’s auto-scaling feature enables organizations to automatically increase or decrease the number of nodes in a cluster based on resource demand.

Autoscaling ensures that applications running on the cluster can access the resources they need to function correctly. This gives organizations the assurance that their applications will stay up and running even when there's a surge in demand.

Load balancing

GKE provides built-in load-balancing capabilities that distribute traffic evenly across multiple instances of an application.

Load Balancing helps avoid overloading individual instances and ensures that users can access the application without experiencing downtime or performance issues. GKE load balancers can be configured to use different algorithms, such as round-robin, IP hash, and session affinity, to distribute traffic based on specific criteria.

Node pools

GKE’s node pools feature enables organizations to group nodes in a cluster based on their size, configuration, and workload requirements. Organizations can scale different parts of their application independently based on the specific needs of each component.

Node pools also enable organizations to optimize resource allocation and reduce costs by only provisioning resources as needed.

Cluster autoscaling

The GKE cluster autoscaling feature enables organizations to adjust the size of a cluster based on demand automatically. GKE can automatically create additional nodes as the workload increases to ensure the cluster can handle the load.

Conversely, GKE can automatically shut down nodes as demand decreases to reduce costs. This ensures that organizations only pay for the resources they need while maintaining high availability and scalability.

Rolling updates and rollbacks

GKE’s rolling updates and rollbacks feature enables organizations to deploy updates to their applications without causing any downtime.

Rolling updates allow organizations to update applications in a controlled and incremental manner, ensuring that each new application version is thoroughly tested before deployment. If any issues arise during the deployment process, GKE’s rollback feature allows organizations to quickly revert to the previous version of the application, minimizing downtime and ensuring high availability.

Multi-zone clusters

GKE’s multi-zone clusters feature enables organizations to create clusters spanning multiple availability zones within a single region.

This feature provides additional redundancy and high availability, ensuring that if one zone experiences an outage, the application can continue running in another location. Multi-zone clusters also help reduce latency by ensuring that users access the application from the zone closest to them.

Apps stay available at all times

Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE) provides a wide range of features to ensure scalability and high availability of applications running on the platform.

By leveraging these features, organizations can ensure that their applications are highly available and scalable, even during periods of high demand. As a result, GKE is an ideal solution for organizations that require a reliable and scalable platform for deploying and managing containerized applications.

Do you want to know more about GKE and the cloud? Schedule a free consultation with one of our cloud experts here.

Have you listened to our podcast "Cloud Do You Do?" yet? Check out our episode with Rouvy where we discuss how to easily scale up infrastructure based on market demand, optimize costs, and leverage unlimited computing power to handle complex tasks.