GKE On-Prem eng here.

GKE On-Prem is packaged with upstream K8s. So for your team that currently uses `kubectl` to deploy or manage workloads, there won't be any differences.

What is the value prop then, for someone who already runs open source Kubernetes on-prem? Why should he pay extra for GKE on-prem?

Excellent question.

GKE On-Prem is a Google provided, validated and supported distribution of Kubernetes and extensions that offer a GKE-like experience in your on-premise datacenter. It makes it easy to install and upgrade Kubernetes and provides access to GCP services such as monitoring, logging, metrics, security and auditing for your on-premise installation. It is the foundational component of the Cloud Services Platform, and is how Google "brings the cloud to you".

CSP combines Kubernetes both in your on-premise datacenter (GKE On-Prem) and Google-managed Kubernetes in GCP (GKE) with Istio and other CI/CD (Cloud Build) and serverless (Knative) products. You can leverage this suite of products to both modernize your existing on-premise applications and build new applications in the cloud.

Additionally, Google will be offering phone and email support similar to the existing GCP support packages.

What is the benefit, if you get the same output from "kubectl" as regular GKE, or from any other distro.

Basically, this is yet another paid packaged Kubernetes distribution, that has the explicit goal to do "Hybrid clustering" so that it is easier to lure the customer back to GKE. Do I get that right ?

What we have found out is that most on-prem customers are eager to move to the cloud. Practically it's not easy to just lift-and-shift. So think of this is a ramp to the cloud.

Now, the benefit of upstream K8s is that your dev team can build apps and containers without proprietary APIs; so when you are ready to move to the cloud you are not locked-in.

Thanks. I agree that lift and shift never happens easily in real life.

That being said, why would I not use the actual free upstream Kubernetes for my on-prem distribution ? (with the help of one of the thousands installer out there like kube-adm, kubespray, etc).

What I have seen working with Kubernetes for quite a while, is that the lowest common demominator is the YAML definitions for your workloads (what you want to run on your Kubernetes cluster). Those should be portable accross any Kubernetes distribution, on-prem or on the cloud. As far as I can tell, today this is already the case.

Is the benefit in this case that you can use the Google ecosystem for logs etc ?

Kubeadm and others help install, but they don't manage clusters over time. We find that the ongoing management of GKE is what really speaks to people.

The workloads will still be as portable as ever, of course.

> That being said, why would I not use the actual free upstream Kubernetes for my on-prem distribution ? (with the help of one of the thousands installer out there like kube-adm, kubespray, etc).

None of them actually provision your infra for you (VMs, LB rules etc). GKE On-Prem will.

Ok, thanks I got it, you are bundling everything into a VMWare image, that boots ready to use.

Is it fair to say that this is similar to Canonical Ubuntu MAAS + Juju Kubernetes? I'm sure that Red Hat Openshift must have something similar also to install directly on a pool of managed bare metals.

I don't know enough about Juju K8s to really say similar it is. GKE On-Prem will be an OS image, set of containers, config, tooling and support.

What is CSP?

I think it's that Google provides the master node as a service. That's a big benefit. Plus, it looks like the add some security tooling.

The master node is on-prem? Does that mean that this requires that Google has permanent access to my intranet ?

Google K8s specialist here.

The entire cluster is on-prem. At the moment, you can optionally leverage a secured tether to manage your cluster in GCP with the same management features you've come to expect with GKE proper. If the connection is lost, your cluster is still fully functional, so no there is no requirement for permanent access to your intranet. The access, when it exists, is also secured to only permit specific access between Google's network and your cluster.

Thanks, and what are the conditions on keeping my on-prem GKE up-to-date so it doesn't lose compatibility with Google Cloud?

Yes and no. The connection is needed to show your workloads and other cluster information in GCP Console (similar to what was shown in the keynote). However, if the connection goes down, your cluster will not stop working.