Google Container Engine

Everything at Google, from Search to Gmail, is packaged and run in a Linux container. Each week we launch more than 2 billion container instances across our global data centers, and the power of containers has enabled both more reliable services and higher, more-efficient utilization of our infrastructure. We developed Kubernetes, the open source orchestration system for Docker containers, based on our experience engineering Google’s internal systems. Now Kubernetes powers Container Engine. With Container Engine, you can focus on your application, rather than managing a compute cluster or manually scheduling your containers.

Container Engine is in beta and we are working hard to improve existing features and add new capabilities. Try Container Engine, sign up for our customer programs, and share your feedback.

Docker support

Container Engine supports the common Docker container format. And with Google Container Registry, Cloud Platform makes it easy to store and access your private Docker images.

Better ops

Spin up a managed container cluster of virtual machines, ready for deployment. Your cluster is equipped with capabilities, such as logging and container health checking, to make application management easier.

Declarative management

Declare your containers’ requirements, such as the amount of CPU/memory to reserve, number of replicas, and keepalive policy, in a simple JSON config file. Container Engine will schedule your containers as declared, and actively manage your application to ensure requirements are met.

Scalable

Easily adjust the cluster resources allocated to your containers as your application’s requirements change.

Cloud flexibility

With Red Hat, Microsoft, IBM, Mirantis OpenStack, and VMWare -- and the list keeps growing -- working to integrate Kubernetes into their platforms, you’ll be able to move workloads, or take advantage of multiple cloud providers, more easily.

Easy container organization

Logically organize your containers into groups for easy management, with a powerful labeling system

Container Engine uses Google Compute Engine instances for nodes in the cluster. You will be billed for those instances according to Compute Engine's pricing, until the clusters are deleted.

During this beta phase, there is no additional cost for Container Engine.

After general availability (GA), we will have two levels of pricing for Container Engine:

Standard clusters that run up to 100 virtual machine nodes will be charged $0.15 per hour. Google will manage the cluster availability for you.
Basic clusters that allow you to try Container Engine on up to 5 virtual machine nodes and later upgrade to standard, if you want managed uptime. Basic clusters have no added charge as a promotional price; there is no end date for the promotional rate at this time.

You will be able to upgrade Basic clusters to Standard.

You can quickly create an estimate of your monthly Compute Engine charges using the Google Cloud Platform pricing calculator.

Container Engine Beta