Previous "free trial" installations of Knative serving were enabled in clusters
as a "GKE add-on". Beginning with Anthos version 1.8,
Knative serving must be installed as a fleet component with
Cloud Service Mesh.
To migrate your existing Knative serving installation to use a
fleet and Cloud Service Mesh, choose the corresponding guide
for your cluster:
If GKE Enterprise does not meet your needs, you can migrate your existing
Knative serving workloads to run on other products.
Learn how to migrate your workloads.
What's new in Knative serving fleet installations
The changes to the installation of Knative serving provide the following:
Fleets enable you to
manage and upgrade your Knative serving installation independently of the
other enterprise components.
Cloud Service Mesh version 1.18 is another
component of your fleet, which now decouples Knative serving
from your service mesh administration and maintenance tasks. Use of
Cloud Service Mesh brings your installation to parity with the rest of
GKE Enterprise and also removes the dependencies and those limitations of the
previously bundled Istio version.
Fleet-wide access and administration across your clusters:
Full integration with
fleet components.
Like Cloud Service Mesh, your Knative serving installation gains support within
and across your GKE Enterprise environment.
Your Knative serving installation is always up-to-date. The
appdevexperience-operatoroperator
that runs in your cluster automatically rolls out the latest version of
Knative serving as
new pods are created.
[[["Easy to understand","easyToUnderstand","thumb-up"],["Solved my problem","solvedMyProblem","thumb-up"],["Other","otherUp","thumb-up"]],[["Hard to understand","hardToUnderstand","thumb-down"],["Incorrect information or sample code","incorrectInformationOrSampleCode","thumb-down"],["Missing the information/samples I need","missingTheInformationSamplesINeed","thumb-down"],["Other","otherDown","thumb-down"]],["Last updated 2025-08-28 UTC."],[],[],null,["# Knative serving fleet installation overview\n\nKnative serving is supported on GKE Enterprise through\n[fleets](/anthos/multicluster-management/fleets) and in-cluster\n[Cloud Service Mesh](/service-mesh/v1.18/docs/overview). To learn more about\nKnative serving, see the\n[architectural overview](/kubernetes-engine/enterprise/knative-serving/docs/architecture-overview).\n\nNew installations\n-----------------\n\nChoose the installation method that matches the location of your GKE cluster:\n\nOn Google Cloud\n: For the Google Kubernetes Engine clusters in your fleet that are\n running on Google Cloud.\n [See the on Google Cloud install prerequisites](/kubernetes-engine/enterprise/knative-serving/docs/install/on-gcp/prerequisites).\n\nOutside Google Cloud\n: For the GKE clusters in your fleet that are hosted and running outside\n Google Cloud.\n [See the outside Google Cloud install prerequisites](/kubernetes-engine/enterprise/knative-serving/docs/install/outside-gcp/prerequisites).\n\nUpgrading \"free trial\" installations\n------------------------------------\n\nPrevious \"free trial\" installations of Knative serving were enabled in clusters\nas a \"*GKE add-on*\". Beginning with Anthos version 1.8,\nKnative serving must be installed as a fleet component with\nCloud Service Mesh.\n\nTo migrate your existing Knative serving installation to use a\nfleet and Cloud Service Mesh, choose the corresponding guide\nfor your cluster:\n\n- [Upgrading GKE on Google Cloud to fleets](/kubernetes-engine/enterprise/knative-serving/docs/install/on-gcp/upgrade)\n- [Upgrading Knative serving on VMware to fleets](/kubernetes-engine/enterprise/knative-serving/docs/install/outside-gcp/upgrade-vmware)\n\n### Migrate off Knative serving\n\nIf GKE Enterprise does not meet your needs, you can migrate your existing\nKnative serving workloads to run on other products.\n[Learn how to migrate your workloads](/anthos/run/docs/migrate).\n\n### What's new in Knative serving fleet installations\n\nThe changes to the installation of Knative serving provide the following:\n\n- [Fleets](/anthos/multicluster-management/fleets) enable you to\n manage and upgrade your Knative serving installation independently of the\n other enterprise components.\n\n- [Cloud Service Mesh version 1.18](/service-mesh/v1.18/docs) is another\n component of your fleet, which now decouples Knative serving\n from your service mesh administration and maintenance tasks. Use of\n Cloud Service Mesh brings your installation to parity with the rest of\n GKE Enterprise and also removes the dependencies and those limitations of the\n previously bundled Istio version.\n\n- Fleet-wide access and administration across your clusters:\n\n - Full integration with\n [fleet components](/anthos/multicluster-management/fleets#fleet-enabled-components).\n Like Cloud Service Mesh, your Knative serving installation gains support within\n and across your GKE Enterprise environment.\n\n - You can use Terraform to manage your configurations, for example\n [Setup Anthos on Google Cloud](/anthos/docs/setup/set-up-google-cloud#registering_clusters_to_the_fleet).\n\n- Your Knative serving installation is always up-to-date. The\n `appdevexperience-operator`\n [operator](https://kubernetes.io/docs/concepts/extend-kubernetes/operator/)\n that runs in your cluster automatically rolls out the latest version of\n Knative serving as\n [new pods are created](https://kubernetes.io/docs/concepts/workloads/pods/#pod-update-and-replacement)."]]
