Arm workloads on GKE

This page explains how you can run Arm workloads on Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE).

Overview

You can run Arm workloads on GKE using the Scale-Out compute class, or in GKE Standard clusters using the Tau T2A machine series. You can run single-architecture Arm images or multi-architecture (multi-arch) images compatible with both x86 and Arm processors. To learn about the benefits of Arm, see Arm VMs on Compute.

See the following guides for more information about choosing workloads to deploy on Arm and preparing those workloads for deployment:

• Choosing workloads to run on Arm: Arm nodes are a good choice for scale-out and compute-intensive workloads. To learn more about what types of workloads work well with Arm, see Workload Recommendations.
• Deploying across architectures: With GKE, you can use multi-arch images to easily deploy one image manifest across nodes with different architectures, including Arm.
  • To ensure that your container image is Arm-compatible and can run on your targeted architectures, see Build multi-architecture images for Arm workloads.
  • To follow a tutorial for using multi-arch images to deploy across architectures, see Migrate x86 application on GKE to multi-arch with Arm.
• Preparing Arm workloads for deployment: Once you have an Arm-compatible image, use node affinity rules and node selectors to make sure your workload is scheduled to nodes with a compatible architecture type.
  • Autopilot clusters: see Deploy Autopilot workloads on Arm architecture.
  • Standard clusters: see Prepare an Arm workload for deployment.

Requirements and limitations

• To create a cluster with Arm nodes, you must use GKE version 1.24 or later.

• Arm nodes are available in the following Google Cloud regions:

  • us-central1 (Iowa - Zone A, B, F)
  • europe-west4 (Netherlands - Zone A, B)
  • asia-southeast1 (Singapore - Zone B, C)

• GKE doesn't support the following features with T2A nodes:

  • Confidential GKE Nodes
  • Container Threat Detection
  • GPUs
  • GKE Windows
  • Local SSDs
  • Managed Service for Prometheus
  • Policy Controller, Config Sync, and Config Controller

The following limitations apply to GKE Standard clusters:

• Support for metrics-server on Arm nodes is available on GKE version 1.24.2-gke.300 and later. If you need metrics-server functionality on an earlier version, add a node pool with x86 nodes to schedule metrics-server.
• Support for Ubuntu OS node images on Arm nodes is available on GKE version 1.24.3-gke.2400 and later.
• Support for Image streaming on Arm nodes is available on GKE version 1.24.4-gke.800 and later.
• Support for GKE Sandbox on Arm nodes is available in the following GKE versions:
  • 1.24.5-gke.600 and later
  • 1.25.1-gke.500 and later

What's next

• Create clusters and node pools with Arm nodes
• Build multi-architecture images for Arm workloads
• Prepare an Arm workload for deployment
• Migrate x86 application on GKE to multi-arch with Arm