Comparing GKE Autopilot Cost Efficiency to Traditional Managed Kubernetes

As the default and recommended mode of cluster operation in Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE), we’ve told you about how GKE Autopilot can save you up to 85% on your Kubernetes total cost of ownership (TCO)1 compared with traditional managed Kubernetes. That’s a lot of potential savings — to say nothing of the operational savings that GKE Autopilot users enjoy.

But how? Where do these cost efficiencies come from? More to the point, how can you use Autopilot mode to save yourself the most money? In this blog post, we dig into how GKE Autopilot pricing works, and explore the types of considerations you should be factoring into your Kubernetes cost-efficiency analysis.

Traditional managed Kubernetes pricing model

But first, let’s review how pricing works in a traditional managed Kubernetes environment. Kubernetes clusters run their workloads on nodes — underlying compute and infrastructure resources (usually virtual machines, or VMs). With traditional managed Kubernetes, you are indirectly paying for those provisioned nodes including their CPU/Memory ratios and other attributes, e.g., which Compute Engine machine family they are running on.

Read the full article here.

Learn more about EPAM’s partnership with Google Cloud: https://www.epam.com/about/who-we-are/partners/google-cloud