GKE cluster creation (Autopilot vs Standard) in GCP - Hands-On Comparison

GKE cluster creation (Autopilot vs Standard)

📖 Scenario: You are a cloud engineer setting up Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE) clusters for your company. You need to create two types of clusters: one using Autopilot mode for simplified management, and another using Standard mode for more control.

🎯 Goal: Build two GKE clusters using Google Cloud CLI commands: one Autopilot cluster and one Standard cluster with node pools.

📋 What You'll Learn

Create a GKE Autopilot cluster named auto-cluster in the us-central1 region

Create a GKE Standard cluster named standard-cluster in the us-central1 region

Add a node pool named default-pool with 3 nodes of machine type e2-medium to the Standard cluster

Use exact command syntax and names as specified

💡 Why This Matters

🌍 Real World

Creating GKE clusters is a common task for deploying containerized applications on Google Cloud. Autopilot mode simplifies management, while Standard mode offers more control.

💼 Career

Cloud engineers and DevOps professionals often need to create and manage GKE clusters to support scalable and reliable application deployments.

1

Create the Autopilot cluster

Write the gcloud command to create a GKE Autopilot cluster named auto-cluster in the us-central1 region.

GCP

# Your gcloud command here to create the Autopilot cluster

Need a hint?

Use gcloud container clusters create-auto to create an Autopilot cluster.

2

Create the Standard cluster

Write the gcloud command to create a GKE Standard cluster named standard-cluster in the us-central1 region.

GCP

gcloud container clusters create-auto auto-cluster --region us-central1
# Your gcloud command here to create the Standard cluster

Need a hint?

Use gcloud container clusters create to create a Standard cluster.

3

Add a node pool to the Standard cluster

Write the gcloud command to add a node pool named default-pool with 3 nodes of machine type e2-medium to the Standard cluster standard-cluster in the us-central1 region.

GCP

gcloud container clusters create-auto auto-cluster --region us-central1
gcloud container clusters create standard-cluster --region us-central1
# Your gcloud command here to add the node pool

Need a hint?

Use gcloud container node-pools create with the correct flags to add nodes.

4

Verify cluster creation commands

Add the final command to list all GKE clusters in the us-central1 region to verify your clusters.

GCP

gcloud container clusters create-auto auto-cluster --region us-central1
gcloud container clusters create standard-cluster --region us-central1
gcloud container node-pools create default-pool --cluster standard-cluster --region us-central1 --num-nodes 3 --machine-type e2-medium
# Your gcloud command here to list clusters

Need a hint?

Use gcloud container clusters list with the --region flag to see your clusters.