Step 0: Install Google Cloud SDK (gcloud)

To work with GKE, install the Google Cloud SDK and Kubernetes CLI (kubectl).

# Install kubectl
gcloud components install kubectl

• Run gcloud auth login
• Select your project: gcloud config set project PROJECT_ID

Step 1: Enable Required APIs

gcloud services enable \
  container.googleapis.com \
  compute.googleapis.com

Step 2: Create a GKE Cluster

Using the CLI:

gcloud container clusters create my-cluster \
  --zone=europe-west1-b \
  --machine-type=e2-medium \
  --num-nodes=3

Using the Console:

• Go to Kubernetes Engine → Clusters
• Click “Create” → Standard
• Select Compute type, node pool size, autoscaling…

Step 3: Connect to the Cluster

gcloud container clusters get-credentials my-cluster \
  --zone=europe-west1-b

You can now run Kubernetes commands:

kubectl get nodes
kubectl get pods

Step 4: Deploy Your First App

kubectl create deployment hello-app \
  --image=gcr.io/google-samples/hello-app:1.0

Expose it to the internet:

kubectl expose deployment hello-app \
  --type=LoadBalancer \
  --port=80 \
  --target-port=8080

Check the external IP:

kubectl get service hello-app

Step 5: Scaling Applications

kubectl scale deployment hello-app --replicas=5

Step 6: Autoscaling Node Pools

gcloud container clusters update my-cluster \
  --enable-autoscaling \
  --min-nodes=2 \
  --max-nodes=10 \
  --zone=europe-west1-b

Step 7: GKE IAM & RBAC

Two layers manage security:

• GCP IAM → Who can access the cluster
• Kubernetes RBAC → What they can do inside the cluster

Add a user as a GKE admin:

gcloud projects add-iam-policy-binding PROJECT_ID \
  --member="user:[email protected]" \
  --role="roles/container.admin"

Create a Kubernetes RBAC role:

kubectl create role pod-reader \
  --verb=get --verb=list --verb=watch \
  --resource=pods -n default

Bind it to a user:

kubectl create rolebinding read-pods \
  --role=pod-reader \
  [email protected] \
  -n default

Step 8: Monitoring & Logging

GKE integrates natively with Cloud Monitoring and Cloud Logging.

• Go to “Kubernetes Engine → Workloads → Logs”
• Use kubectl logs for pod logs
• Use Cloud Monitoring dashboards

Step 9: Best Practices

• Use Autopilot for simplified operations
• Use Workload Identity → Best for IAM-secure pods
• Enable auto-upgrades for nodes
• Use Ingress + Cloud Load Balancing for production services
• Separate workloads using namespaces