Discover how to modernize, manage, and observe applications at scale using Google Kubernetes Engine. This course uses lectures and hands-on labs to help you explore and deploy using Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE), GKE Fleets, Cloud Service Mesh, and Config Controller capabilities that will enable you to work with modern applications, even when they are split among multiple clusters hosted by multiple providers.

Manage Scalable Workloads in GKE

What you'll learn
Describe the challenges of designing a multi-cluster infrastructure.
Describe the components and architecture of GKE Fleets
Identify and describe the core components of a GKE fleet.
Create, connect, and manage GKE clusters from multiple deployment environments.
Details to know

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13 assignments
November 2025
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There are 16 modules in this course
In this introduction, you'll explore the course goals and preview each section.
What's included
1 video
1 video• Total 2 minutes
- Course introduction• 2 minutes
In the first section of this course titled, “Introduction to GKE at Scale,” you’ll learn to recognize the challenges of designing and building multi-environment solutions. Explain how GKE uses fleets to streamline operations. Describe the concepts of sameness and trust and use them to manage fleets. Finally you'll be able to identify the features and components used to manage GKE fleets.
What's included
5 videos1 assignment
5 videos• Total 13 minutes
- Introduction• 1 minute
- Multi-cluster overview• 1 minute
- GKE Fleets• 3 minutes
- Sameness and trust• 3 minutes
- GKE Fleet Management• 5 minutes
1 assignment• Total 10 minutes
- Quiz.• 10 minutes
In this section of this course titled “Multi-cluster GKE Architecture”, you’ll learn to recognize how GKE can be used to centralize cluster management. Examine the architecture of GKE mulit-cluster clusters. Learn how to create, connect, and manage GKE fleets. You'll also learn how to securely access GKE fleet clusters.
What's included
5 videos1 assignment
5 videos• Total 15 minutes
- Introduction• 2 minutes
- Centralized cluster management• 2 minutes
- Multi-cluster GKE• 5 minutes
- Connect and Manage Fleet Clusters• 4 minutes
- Access GKE Fleet Clusters• 3 minutes
1 assignment• Total 12 minutes
- Quiz.• 12 minutes
This section is about fleets and teams in GKE. You’ll learn how to define GKE fleets. Describe how GKE fleets can solve common cluster management problems. How to manage fleets and teams in GKE. You'll also be able to detail the elements of Fleet management.
What's included
5 videos1 assignment1 app item
5 videos• Total 20 minutes
- Introduction• 1 minute
- What Are GKE Fleets?• 4 minutes
- Fleet Solutions• 5 minutes
- Fleet Team Management• 6 minutes
- Fleet Management• 5 minutes
1 assignment• Total 10 minutes
- Quiz.• 10 minutes
1 app item• Total 60 minutes
- Lab: Manage Workloads at Scale with GKE Fleets and Teams• 60 minutes
In this section of the course, titled “Managing GKE configuration at Scale,” you’ll learn to recognize the challenges of scaling multi-cluster, multi-tenant configurations. Configure a centralized configuration management using GitOps model. Describe the benefits and architecture of Config Sync. Use Policy Controller to enforce security and compliance in GKE. Extend GitOps principles to Google Cloud resources. Finally you will learn how to create a standardized, reusable, and policy-driven foundation for Kubernetes deployments.
What's included
7 videos1 assignment1 app item
7 videos• Total 26 minutes
- Introduction• 1 minute
- Configuration management challenges• 2 minutes
- Centralized configuration at scale• 4 minutes
- Config Sync• 5 minutes
- Policy Controller• 6 minutes
- Config Connector• 3 minutes
- Blueprints• 5 minutes
1 assignment• Total 12 minutes
- Quiz.• 12 minutes
1 app item• Total 60 minutes
- Lab: Automate GKE Configurations with Config Sync • 60 minutes
In this section of the course, you’ll learn how to explain how fleet networking works. Describe how Pods in a Kubernetes cluster communicate with each other. Enable multi-cluster Services. Configure multi-cluster Services. Detail the elements of fleet management. Outline the role of a multi-cluster gateway. You'll also learn how to configure a multicluster gateway.
What's included
7 videos1 assignment1 app item
7 videos• Total 21 minutes
- Introduction• 2 minutes
- Fleet networking communications• 3 minutes
- Pods Discovery in GKE• 2 minutes
- Multi-cluster Services• 1 minute
- Configuring multi-cluster Services• 5 minutes
- Multi-cluster gateway• 2 minutes
- Configuring multi-cluster gateways• 5 minutes
1 assignment• Total 14 minutes
- Quiz.• 14 minutes
1 app item• Total 90 minutes
- Lab: Deploying a Multi-Cluster Gateway Across GKE Clusters• 90 minutes
In this section, titled, you learn to list and describe the benefits of using Cloud Service Mesh. Install and configure Cloud Service Mesh on different clusters. Trace the path of a request through the mesh, correctly identifying and explaining the role of key components like Envoy proxies, Mesh CA, and extensions in handling the request. Finally you'll learn to create Service Mesh Dashboards from workload telemetry including metrics, traces, and logs.
What's included
5 videos1 assignment1 app item
5 videos• Total 22 minutes
- Introduction• 1 minute
- Introduction to Cloud Service Mesh• 8 minutes
- Provisioning Cloud Service Mesh• 5 minutes
- Handling requests with Cloud Service Mesh• 3 minutes
- Cloud Service Mesh Dashboards and Support• 5 minutes
1 assignment• Total 16 minutes
- Quiz.• 16 minutes
1 app item• Total 90 minutes
- Lab: Installing Cloud Service Mesh on Google Kubernetes Engine• 90 minutes
In this section, titled, you learn to explain how Cloud Service Mesh learns the network from Kubernetes. Deploy mesh API resources such as the VirtualService, DestinationRule, Gateway, Service Entry, and the Sidecar to configure the mesh. Describe how to harden the mesh network by introducing new functionality such as request retries, request timeouts, and circuit breakers. You'll also learn how to explore Service Mesh resilience by creating failures and delays on specific services.
What's included
7 videos1 assignment1 app item
7 videos• Total 23 minutes
- Introduction• 1 minute
- Configuring Cloud Service Mesh with Istio API• 5 minutes
- Configuring a VirtualService and DestinationRule• 5 minutes
- Configuring a ServiceEntry• 1 minute
- Configuring a Gateway• 4 minutes
- Configuring a WorkloadEntry and WorkloadGroup• 3 minutes
- Network resilience and testing• 4 minutes
1 assignment• Total 10 minutes
- Quiz.• 10 minutes
1 app item• Total 90 minutes
- Lab: Managing Traffic Flow with Cloud Service Mesh• 90 minutes
In this section, you learn how to encrypt traffic between microservices to prevent anyone in the network from gaining access to private information. Authorize services and requests, ensuring that services only access the information that is allowed access from other services. Authenticate and authorize services and requests to verify trust among services in the mesh and among end users. You will also see how to limit service access in the network so that granular controls over the communication can be established.
What's included
5 videos1 assignment1 app item
5 videos• Total 19 minutes
- Introduction• 2 minutes
- Authentication and encryption• 3 minutes
- Service authentication in the mesh• 7 minutes
- End-user authentication in Cloud Service Mesh• 6 minutes
- Authorization in Cloud Service Mesh• 2 minutes
1 assignment• Total 10 minutes
- Quiz.• 10 minutes
1 app item• Total 90 minutes
- Lab: Secure Cloud Service Mesh with Policy Controller and mTLS• 90 minutes
In this section, you learn to set up a multi-cluster mesh with a single subnet in a single VPC network and account for variations like multi-region clusters, multiple projects, shared VPC, and private clusters. You'll also learn to enable communication between GKE clusters on different networks using an east-west gateway and attached clusters.
What's included
3 videos1 assignment1 app item
3 videos• Total 6 minutes
- Introduction• 1 minute
- Single network east-west routing• 4 minutes
- Multiple network east-west routing• 2 minutes
1 assignment• Total 10 minutes
- Quiz.• 10 minutes
1 app item• Total 90 minutes
- Lab: Manage and Secure Distributed Services with GKE Managed Service Mesh• 90 minutes
In this section, you learn to summarize the differences between authentication methods for GKE clusters and explain when to use each. Summarize the key features of connect gateway and explain how it simplifies and secures connections to GKE Enterprise fleet member clusters. Configuring connect gateway for authentication and authorization. Securely access clusters and provide authentication using OpenID Connect (OIDC) and third-party identity providers (IdPs). Finally you'll learn to configure GKE Identity Service to enable authentication and authorization for users when given a GKE cluster and a third-party identity provider (IdP).
What's included
7 videos1 assignment1 app item
7 videos• Total 21 minutes
- Introduction• 1 minute
- Introduction to GKE Identity Service• 3 minutes
- Connect gateway• 2 minutes
- Configuring connect gateway for authentication and authorization• 1 minute
- Accessing clusters with GKE Identity Service• 3 minutes
- Authenticating third-party identities with GKE Identity Service• 4 minutes
- Fleet Workload Identity• 7 minutes
1 assignment• Total 12 minutes
- Quiz.• 12 minutes
1 app item• Total 60 minutes
- Lab: Manage authentication at scale with Connect Gateway• 60 minutes
In this section, you learn to describe GKE security posture. Navigate and interpret the GKE security posture dashboard to identify security issues. Implement node security measures to protect GKE worker nodes from potential threats. Describe the process of vulnerability scanning in GKE. Finally you will be able to explain the roles and capabilities of Google Cloud's Artifact Analysis and Security Command Center in enhancing GKE security.
What's included
6 videos1 assignment
6 videos• Total 17 minutes
- Introduction• 1 minute
- GKE security posture overview• 4 minutes
- Security posture dashboard• 5 minutes
- Implementing node security• 3 minutes
- Vulnerability scanning• 3 minutes
- Additional security services• 2 minutes
1 assignment• Total 14 minutes
- Quiz.• 14 minutes
In this section, you learn to describe the core components of Google Cloud's CI/CD pipeline and how they address common challenges in application modernization. Analyze how Cloud Deploy integrates with GKE to manage Kubernetes manifests and control deployments. Compare and contrast the deployment strategies for Knative Serving within GKE Enterprise. Explain the steps required to establish a peered VPC connection for secure CI/CD in a private network. You will also learn how to evaluate the various security measures and tools available within Google Cloud for securing the software supply chain.
What's included
9 videos1 assignment1 app item
9 videos• Total 35 minutes
- Introduction• 1 minute
- CI/CD in Google Cloud• 5 minutes
- Cloud Build and GKE• 3 minutes
- Cloud Deploy and GKE• 4 minutes
- Cloud Deploy: Policies,Deployments and Security• 5 minutes
- Cloud Run and Knative Serving• 3 minutes
- Cloud Deploy and Knative Serving• 5 minutes
- CI/CD in a private network• 4 minutes
- Securing the software supply chain• 6 minutes
1 assignment• Total 10 minutes
- Quiz.• 10 minutes
1 app item• Total 90 minutes
- Lab: Creating CI/CD pipelines for GKE Enterprise clusters• 90 minutes
In this section, you learn to explain how GKE serves as a suitable platform for large language models and the increasing demand for hardware accelerators. Describe the high-level architecture of a GKE-based training platform for AI models. Outline the architecture for a GKE-based model serving platform. You will also learn to outline different cost management strategies available when using GKE for AI/ML workloads.
What's included
5 videos1 assignment
5 videos• Total 22 minutes
- Introduction• 1 minute
- AI and GKE overview• 7 minutes
- AI model training on GKE• 4 minutes
- AI model serving on GKE• 4 minutes
- AI cost management on GKE• 5 minutes
1 assignment• Total 10 minutes
- Quiz.• 10 minutes
The course closes with a summary of the key points covered in each section.
What's included
1 video
1 video• Total 9 minutes
- Course summary• 9 minutes
Student PDF links to all modules
What's included
15 readings
15 readings• Total 150 minutes
- Module 0: Introduction• 10 minutes
- Module 1: Introduction to GKE Enterprise• 10 minutes
- Module 2: GKE Enterprise architecture• 10 minutes
- Module 3: Fleets and Teams• 10 minutes
- Module 4: Managing GKE configuration at Scale• 10 minutes
- Module 5: Fleet Networking• 10 minutes
- Module 6: Cloud Service Mesh• 10 minutes
- Module 7: Cloud Service Mesh routing• 10 minutes
- Module 8: Service mesh security• 10 minutes
- Module 9: Multi-cluster Networking with Cloud Service Mesh• 10 minutes
- Module 10: Manage Identity in GKE with Authentication• 10 minutes
- Module 11: Security Posture, Compliance, and Preventative Controls• 10 minutes
- Module 12: CI/CD at scale in GKE• 10 minutes
- Module 13: GKE and AI• 10 minutes
- Module 14: Course Summary• 10 minutes
Instructor

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We help millions of organizations empower their employees, serve their customers, and build what’s next for their businesses with innovative technology created in—and for—the cloud. Our products are engineered for security, reliability, and scalability, running the full stack from infrastructure to applications to devices and hardware. Our teams are dedicated to helping customers apply our technologies to create success.
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