This page describes how Google Distributed Cloud connected works, including information about its infrastructure, hardware, storage, and networking capabilities.
Google Distributed Cloud connected consists of the following components:
- The Distributed Cloud connected infrastructure. Google or a Google-partnered System Integrator (SI) delivers, deploys, and maintains the Distributed Cloud connected hardware, including remote management by a dedicated team.
- The Distributed Cloud connected service. This service allows you
to manage your Distributed Cloud connected clusters and node pools
by using the Google Cloud CLI and the Distributed Cloud Edge Container API.
The Distributed Cloud connected clusters are registered in your
Fleet, and you can use the Kubernetes
kubectlCLI tool to interact with them.
Distributed Cloud connected order types
You can order the Distributed Cloud connected hardware in one of the following ways, based on your business requirements:
Google-owned hardware. You can order the Distributed Cloud connected directly from Google. In this scenario, Google owns, maintains, repairs, and decommissions the Distributed Cloud connected hardware. When your contract concludes, Google collects the Distributed Cloud hardware and destroys all data stored on it.
Customer-owned hardware. You can order Distributed Cloud connected from a Google-partnered SI. In this scenario, you own the Distributed Cloud connected hardware. The SI works with you and Google to deploy, repair, and decommission the hardware. When your contract concludes, the SI wipes all Google software and your data from the Distributed Cloud connected hardware. You are then free to reuse or dispose of the hardware.
Distributed Cloud connected form factors
Distributed Cloud connected is available in one of the following form factors:
Distributed Cloud rack. There are two types of Distributed Cloud racks:
- Standalone rack. A single rack of three to twelve Distributed Cloud connected servers and two top-of-rack (ToR) switches. You can deploy these as standalone, single-zone installations, or aggregate them into a multi-rack zone by connecting them to a base rack.
- Base rack. A pair of racks, each of containing from three to twelve Distributed Cloud connected servers, two top-of-rack (ToR) switches, and one aggregator switch. A base rack lets you create multi-rack deployments by aggregating the resources of one or more standalone racks. A zone containing a base rack can have a minimum of two and a maximum of ten racks, including the two racks comprising the base rack.
Distributed Cloud connected server. A standalone Distributed Cloud connected server that connects directly to your local network through your own ToR switches. Distributed Cloud connected servers can only be deployed in groups of three.
The following table describes the differences between Distributed Cloud connected racks and Distributed Cloud connected servers.
Functionality GDC connected rack GDC connected server Physical form factor Fully populated rack
(2x ToR switch, 3x to 12x rackmount machine, optionally 1x aggregator switch)1RU half-depth rackmount machine
(deployed in groups of 3)Power supply AC and DC AC only GPU workloads Supported Not supported Local network connectivity Layer 3, BGP supported Layer 2, BGP not supported Edge Network networks Fully configurable Single (default) network only Edge Network subnetworks CIDR and VLAN ID VLAN ID only Edge Network interconnects Supported Not supported Edge Network interconnect attachments Supported Not supported Edge Network VPN connections Supported Not supported VPC connectivity Supported Not supported Symcloud Storage Supported Supported Network Function Operator Supported Not supported SR-IOV Supported Not supported
Distributed Cloud connected infrastructure
Google provides, deploys, operates, and maintains the dedicated hardware that runs your Distributed Cloud connected zone. The Distributed Cloud connected nodes that execute your workloads run exclusively on this hardware.
The hardware runs a number of nodes grouped into node pools, which you can assign to clusters within your Distributed Cloud connected zone. You can configure your network so that workloads running on Distributed Cloud connected clusters are available only to your local users or accessible from the internet. You can also configure your network to allow only Distributed Cloud connected nodes to use local resources or to communicate with workloads, such as Compute Engine virtual machine (VM) instances and Kubernetes Pods running in a Virtual Private Cloud (VPC) network over a secure Cloud VPN network connection to a VPC network.
Distributed Cloud connected management
Distributed Cloud connected nodes are not standalone resources and must remain connected to Google Cloud for control plane management and monitoring purposes. The control plane nodes run locally on your Distributed Cloud connected hardware and your workloads continue to run while Distributed Cloud is disconnected from Google Cloud for up to seven days.
Google remotely manages the physical machines and ToR switches that constitute your connected Distributed Cloud deployment. This includes installing software updates and security patches and resolving configuration issues. Your network administrator can also monitor the health and performance of Distributed Cloud connected clusters and nodes and work with Google to resolve any issues.
After Google has successfully deployed the Distributed Cloud connected hardware in your designated location, your cluster administrator can begin configuring the Distributed Cloud connected cluster in a way that's similar to a conventional Kubernetes cluster. They can assign machines to node pools, and node pools to clusters, and grant application owners access as required by their roles. The cluster administrator must, however, keep in mind the processing and storage limitations of the machines in your Distributed Cloud connected rack and plan cluster and workload configuration accordingly.
Distributed Cloud connected provides an API for configuring clusters and node pools.
Access to the Distributed Cloud connected zone
You can configure your network to allow the desired level of access to your Distributed Cloud connected zone, both from your local network and the internet.
You can also grant your Distributed Cloud connected zone access to Google Cloud services by connecting it to your VPC network. Distributed Cloud connected uses Cloud VPN to connect to Google service endpoints. Your network administrator must configure your network to allow this.
Distributed Cloud connected personas
The following personas are involved in the deployment and operation of your Distributed Cloud connected zone:
Field technician. Delivers, installs, and activates the Distributed Cloud connected hardware in your designated location. Your network administrator works with the field technicians to connect the hardware to your power source and connect it to your network. Depending on your order type, this is either a Google technician or a Google-partnered SI technician.
Google site reliability engineer (SRE). Monitors and manages the Distributed Cloud connected hardware. This includes resolving configuration issues, installing patches and updates, and maintaining security.
Network administrator. Configures and maintains network connectivity and access control between the Distributed Cloud connected hardware and your local network. This includes configuring your routing and firewall rules to ensure that all required types of network traffic can freely flow between the Distributed Cloud hardware, Google Cloud, the clients that consume your Distributed Cloud connected workloads, internal and external data repositories, and so on. The network administrator must have access to the Google Cloud console to monitor the status of your Distributed Cloud connected machines. The network administrator also configures Distributed Cloud networking features.
Cluster administrator. Deploys and maintains Distributed Cloud connected clusters within your organization. This includes configuring permissions, logging, and provisioning workloads for each cluster. The cluster administrator assigns nodes to node pools, and node pools to Distributed Cloud connected clusters. The cluster administrator must understand the operational differences between the Distributed Cloud connected cluster and a traditional Kubernetes cluster, such as the processing and storage capabilities of the Distributed Cloud connected hardware, in order to correctly configure and deploy your workloads.
Application owner. A software engineer responsible for developing and/or deploying and monitoring an application running on a Distributed Cloud connected cluster. Application owners that own applications on a Distributed Cloud connected cluster must understand the limitations on the size and location of the clusters as well as the ramifications of deploying an application at the edge, such as performance and latency.
Distributed Cloud connected rack hardware
Figure 1 depicts a typical six-machine Distributed Cloud connected rack configuration.
The components of a Distributed Cloud connected rack installation are as follows:
Google Cloud. Traffic between your Distributed Cloud connected installation and Google Cloud includes hardware management traffic, and Cloud VPN traffic to Google Cloud services and any workloads that you are running there. It can also include VPC traffic, if applicable.
Internet. Encrypted management and monitoring traffic between your Distributed Cloud connected installation and Google Cloud travel over the internet. Distributed Cloud connected does not support proxied internet connections.
Local network. The local network external to the Distributed Cloud rack that connects the peering edge routers to the internet.
Peering edge routers. Your local network routers that interface with the Distributed Cloud ToR switches. Depending on the physical location that you choose for your Distributed Cloud installation, the peering edge routers can be owned and maintained by your organization or your co-location facility. You must configure these routers to use Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) to peer with the ToR switches and advertise a default route to your Distributed Cloud connected hardware. You must also configure these routers, as well as any corresponding firewalls, to allow Google's device management traffic, monitoring traffic, and Cloud VPN traffic, if applicable.
Depending on your business requirements, you can configure these routers as follows:
- Let your Distributed Cloud connected nodes access the internet by using public network address translation (NAT) or direct exposure to public IP addresses.
- Allow a VPN connection to your VPC network and any desired Google Cloud services.
Top-of-rack (ToR) switches. The Layer 3 switches that connect the machines within the rack and interface with your local network. These switches are BGP speakers and handle network traffic between the Distributed Cloud connected rack and your local network equipment. They connect to peering edge routers by using Link Aggregation Control Protocol (LACP) bundles.
Aggregator switch. The Layer 3 switch only present in base racks that connects the ToR switches from your standalone racks and aggregate their traffic to form a multi-rack cluster network. You can connect up to 20 standalone rack ToR switches to the set of two aggregator switches present in a base rack pair, for a total of 10 standalone racks. The aggregator switches connect to your peering edge routers.
Machines. The physical machines that run Distributed Cloud connected software and execute your workloads. Each physical machine is a node within the Distributed Cloud connected cluster.
Distributed Cloud connected server hardware
Figure 2 depicts a typical Distributed Cloud connected server configuration.
The components of a Distributed Cloud connected server installation are as follows:
Google Cloud. Traffic between your Distributed Cloud connected installation and Google Cloud includes hardware management and audit logging traffic. It can also include VPC traffic, if applicable.
Internet. Encrypted management and audit logging traffic between your Distributed Cloud connected installation and Google Cloud travel over the internet. Distributed Cloud connected does not support proxied internet connections.
Local network. Your local network to which Distributed Cloud connected Servers connect through your Layer 2 ToR switches.
Top-of-rack (ToR) switches. Your Layer 2 switches that connect the server machines and interface with your local network. Each Distributed Cloud connected Server machine requires, at a minimum, one in-band and one out-of-band connection to a single ToR switch. Google recommends using two ToR switches and two in-band connections per machine (one per switch) for added reliability. Each Distributed Cloud connected server machine connects to your ToR switches as follows:
- In-band connectivity. Each Distributed Cloud connected server machine connects to one or both of your ToR switches for in-band connectivity. These connections carry your workload traffic. You must configure them as 802.1q trunks and the corresponding native VLAN as the network to which the Distributed Cloud connected management network interfaces belong. If you need additional workload connectivity, you can trunk additional tagged VLANs to your Distributed Cloud connected servers.
- Out-of-band connectivity. Each Distributed Cloud connected server also connects to one ToR switch for out-of-band connectivity, which allows your Distributed Cloud connected servers to communicate with one another. You must place the out-of-band switch ports within the same VLAN.
Machines. The physical Distributed Cloud connected server machines that run Distributed Cloud connected software and execute your workloads. Each physical machine is a node within the Distributed Cloud connected cluster.
Distributed Cloud service
The Distributed Cloud connected service runs directly on the Distributed Cloud hardware. It serves as a control plane for the nodes and clusters on your Distributed Cloud connected hardware. This control plane instantiates and configures your Distributed Cloud connected zone. The specific Google data center to which your Distributed Cloud hardware connects for management is chosen according to its proximity to your Distributed Cloud connected installation.
A Distributed Cloud connected zone consists of the machines installed in your Distributed Cloud connected racks or of the Distributed Cloud connected server machines deployed on your premises. With Distributed Cloud connected rack, you can assign these machines, instantiated as Kubernetes nodes, to a node pool, and the node pool to a Distributed Cloud cluster. With Distributed Cloud connected servers, node pools are populated automatically and not configurable.
Your workloads continue to run even if Distributed Cloud cannot connect to Google Cloud for up to 7 days. After this period, Distributed Cloud must communicate with Google Cloud to refresh authentication tokens, storage encryption keys, and synchronize hardware management and audit logging data.
Figure 3 depicts the logical organization of Distributed Cloud connected entities.
The entities are as follows:
Google Cloud region. The Google Cloud region for your Distributed Cloud connected zone is determined by the location of the Google data center that is the closest to your Distributed Cloud installation.
Kubernetes local control plane. The Kubernetes control plane for each Distributed Cloud connected cluster runs directly on your Distributed Cloud hardware. A cluster can enter survivability mode when the connection to Google Cloud is temporarily lost, allowing your workloads to continue running until the connection is restored. For more information, see Survivability mode.
Distributed Cloud zone. A logical abstraction that represents the Distributed Cloud connected hardware deployed on your premises. A Distributed Cloud zone covers one or more Distributed Cloud connected racks or all of the Distributed Cloud connected server machines deployed at your location. The physical machines in the zone are instantiated as Distributed Cloud connected machines in the Google Cloud console. The machines in a Distributed Cloud connected zone share a single network fabric or a single fault domain. Google creates your machines before delivering your Distributed Cloud connected hardware. You cannot create, delete, or modify Distributed Cloud connected machines.
Node. A node is a Kubernetes resource that instantiates a Distributed Cloud connected physical machine into the Kubernetes realm when creating a node pool, making it available to run workloads by assigning the node pool to a Distributed Cloud connected cluster.
Node pool. A logical grouping of Distributed Cloud connected nodes within a single Distributed Cloud connected zone that lets you assign Distributed Cloud nodes to Distributed Cloud clusters. For Distributed Cloud connected servers, node pools are instantiated and populated automatically.
Cluster. A Distributed Cloud connected cluster that consists of a control plane and one or more node pools.
VPN connection. A VPN tunnel to a VPC network running in a Google Cloud project. This tunnel allows your Distributed Cloud connected workloads to access Compute Engine resources connected to that VPC network. You must create at least one node pool in your zone before you can create a VPN connection. Distributed Cloud connected servers don't support VPN connections.
Storage
Distributed Cloud connected provides 3.3 TiB of usable storage per physical machine in the Distributed Cloud connected rack. This storage is configured as Linux logical volumes. When you create a cluster, Distributed Cloud creates one or more PersistentVolumes and exposes them as block volumes that you can assign to a workload by using PersistentVolumeClaims. Keep in mind that these PersistentVolumes don't provide data durability and are only suitable for ephemeral data. For information about working with block volumes, see PersistentVolumeClaim requesting a Raw Block Volume.
For Distributed Cloud connected servers, storage is exclusively abstracted through Rakuten Symcloud Storage. Each Distributed Cloud connected server machine provides 1TB of usable storage.
Storage security
Distributed Cloud connected uses LUKS to encrypt local machine storage and supports customer-managed encryption keys (CMEK). For more information, see Security best practices.
Symcloud Storage integration
On Distributed Cloud connected racks, you can configure Distributed Cloud to use Rakuten Symcloud Storage, which acts as a local storage abstraction layer on each Distributed Cloud connected rack node and makes its local storage available to workloads running on other Distributed Cloud connected nodes. On Distributed Cloud connected servers, Symcloud Storage is the default and only storage option available. Distributed Cloud connected servers don't expose local storage as Linux logical volumes.
For more information, see Configure Distributed Cloud connected for Symcloud Storage.
Networking
This section describes the network connectivity requirements and features of Distributed Cloud connected.
Google pre-configures some of the virtual networking components for your installation before shipping the Distributed Cloud connected hardware to you. You cannot modify the pre-configured settings after the hardware is delivered.
Figure 3 depicts the topology of virtual network in a Distributed Cloud connected deployment.
The components of the virtual network in a Distributed Cloud connected deployment are as follows:
Network. A virtual network with a private address space in your Distributed Cloud connected zone. A network is Layer 3-isolated from other virtual networks within the zone and can contain one or more subnetworks. The virtual network spans all the physical machines in the Distributed Cloud connected rack. A single Distributed Cloud connected zone supports a maximum of 20 networks. Distributed Cloud connected servers only support a single network, the default one created when a Distributed Cloud connected server cluster is instantiated.
Subnetwork. A Layer 2 and Layer 3 VLAN subnetwork within a Distributed Cloud network. A subnetwork has its own broadcast domain and one or more IPv4 address ranges of your choice. Subnetworks within the same network are Layer 2-isolated but can communicate with each other through Layer 3. Nodes on different subnetworks within the same network can communicate with each other by using their IP addresses. However, nodes on subnetworks within different networks cannot communicate with each other. Distributed Cloud connected servers only support subnetwork management using VLAN IDs.
Router. A virtual router instance that governs traffic within a Distributed Cloud network. Your network administrator uses a router to configure a BGP peering session over an interconnect attachment between a Distributed Cloud network and your local network so that Distributed Cloud Pods can advertise their network prefixes on your local network. By default, routers re-advertise the routes received from Distributed Cloud subnetworks. Distributed Cloud supports one router per network. Distributed Cloud connected servers don't support routers.
Interconnect. A bundled logical link between a Distributed Cloud network and your local network. An interconnect is comprised of one or more physical links. During initial start-up, Google creates the interconnects that you requested when you ordered Distributed Cloud connected. Interconnects cannot be created, modified, or removed after the Distributed Cloud connected rack is up and running. By default, Google creates four interconnects to provide high availability for your installation. Distributed Cloud connected servers don't support interconnects.
Interconnect attachment. A virtual link between an interconnect and a router that isolates the corresponding Distributed Cloud network from your local network. Traffic flowing through an interconnect attachment can be untagged or tagged with a VLAN ID of your choice. You create interconnect attachments based on your business requirements. Distributed Cloud servers don't support interconnect attachments.
Distributed Cloud connected networking components share similarities with their Google Cloud equivalents with the following differences:
Distributed Cloud connected networking components are local to the Distributed Cloud connected zone in which they are instantiated.
A Distributed Cloud network does not have direct connectivity to a VPC network.
By default, Distributed Cloud networks have no connectivity with each other across different Distributed Cloud connected zones. You have the option to explicitly configure cross-zone networking.
Your network administrator configures Distributed Cloud connected networking components, except interconnects, which Google configures before shipping the Distributed Cloud connected hardware to you.
Your network administrator must have the
Edge Network Admin role
(roles/edgenetwork.admin) on the target Google Cloud project, while
application developers that deploy workloads on
Distributed Cloud connected must have the
Edge Network Viewer role
(roles/edgenetwork.viewer) on the target Google Cloud project.
Connectivity to your local network
For outbound traffic to resources on your local network, Pods in a Distributed Cloud connected cluster use the default routes advertised by your peering edge routers. Distributed Cloud connected uses its built-in NAT to connect Pods to those resources.
For inbound traffic from resources on your local network, your network administrator must configure routing policies that match your business requirements to control access to Pods in each of your Distributed Cloud connected clusters. This means, at a minimum, completing the steps in Firewall configuration and configuring additional policies as required by your workloads. For example, you can set up allow/deny policies for individual node subnetworks or virtual IP addresses exposed by the built-in load balancer in Distributed Cloud connected. The Distributed Cloud connected Pod and Distributed Cloud connected Service CIDR blocks are not directly accessible.
Connectivity to the internet
For outbound traffic to resources on the internet, Pods in a Distributed Cloud connected cluster use the default route advertised by your routers to the Distributed Cloud connected ToR switches. This means, at a minimum, completing the steps in Firewall configuration and configuring additional policies as required by your workloads. Distributed Cloud connected uses its built-in NAT to connect Pods to those resources. You can optionally configure your own layer of NAT on top of the built-in layer in Distributed Cloud connected.
For inbound traffic, you must configure your WAN routers according to your business requirements. These requirements dictate the level of access that you need to provide from the public internet to the Pods in your Distributed Cloud connected clusters. Distributed Cloud connected uses its built-in NAT for Pod CIDR blocks and Service management CIDR blocks, so those CIDR blocks are not accessible from the internet.
Connectivity to a VPC network
Distributed Cloud connected includes a built in VPN solution that allows you to connect a Distributed Cloud connected cluster directly to a VPC instance if that instance is in the same Google Cloud project as the Distributed Cloud connected cluster.
If you use Cloud Interconnect to connect your local network to a VPC instance, your Distributed Cloud connected clusters can reach that instance by using the standard northbound eBGP peering. Your peering edge routers must be able to reach the appropriate VPC prefixes, and your Cloud Interconnect routers must correctly announce your Distributed Cloud connected prefixes, such as Distributed Cloud connected load balancer, management, and system subnetworks.
After you establish a VPN connection between your Distributed Cloud connected cluster and your VPC network, the following connectivity rules apply by default:
- Your VPC network can access all the Pods in the Distributed Cloud connected cluster.
- All the Pods in the Distributed Cloud connected cluster can access all the Pods in your VPC-native clusters. For routes-based clusters, you must manually configure custom advertised routes.
- All Pods in the Distributed Cloud connected cluster can access virtual machine subnetworks in your VPC network.
The functionality described in this section is not available on Distributed Cloud connected servers.
Connectivity to Google Cloud APIs and services
After you configure a VPN connection to your VPC network, workloads running on your Distributed Cloud connected installation can access Google Cloud APIs and services.
You can additionally configure the following features if your business requirements call for them:
- Private Google Access to access Google Cloud APIs and services
- Private Service Connect to use private service endpoints to access Google Cloud APIs
VPN connectivity is not available on Distributed Cloud connected servers.
Network security
Your business requirements and your organization's network security policy dictate the steps necessary to secure network traffic that flows in and out of your Distributed Cloud connected installation. For more information, see Security best practices.
Other networking features
Distributed Cloud connected supports the following networking features:
High-performance networking support
Distributed Cloud connected racks support the execution of workloads that require the best possible networking performance. To this end, Distributed Cloud connected ships with a specialized Network Function operator and a set of Kubernetes CustomResourceDefinitions (CRDs) that implement the features required for high-performance workload execution.
Distributed Cloud connected racks also support virtualizing network interfaces by using SR-IOV.
The features described in this section are not available on Distributed Cloud connected servers.
Virtual machine workload support
Distributed Cloud connected can run workloads in virtual machines in addition to containers. For more information, see Manage virtual machines.
To learn about how virtual machines serve as an essential component of the Google Distributed Cloud connected platform, see Extending GKE Enterprise to manage on-premises edge VMs.
GPU workload support
Distributed Cloud connected can run GPU-based workloads on NVIDIA Tesla T4 GPUs. You must specify this requirement when ordering your Distributed Cloud connected hardware. For more information, see Manage GPU workloads.
This functionality is not available on Distributed Cloud connected servers.