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Google Kubernetes Engine is introducing a cluster management fee on June 6

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Re: Google Kubernetes Engine is introducing a cluster management fee on June 6

#71

This is awful - I don’t think GCP is fully aware of their position in the market as the second, inferior choice. I took a bet on the underdog by using GCP and they bit me back in return. Especially considering their ‘default’ kubernetes config automatically sets you up with three(!) control planes in replication, that’s, as far as I understand, $~300 added to our monthly bill, for nothing. Oh, and per their docs, thr…

Too many people drank the cloud kool-aid. The move from day one was to create provider agnostic cloud architectures and repent the use of provider-specific services.

That said they do make it damn hard. Our k8s cluster is as basic as it comes, no databases, simple deployments, but we do still have a dependency on Google Cloud Loadbalancer (which we hate).

If pricing goes up too much from this we'll move, but the GCL dependency will be a PITA :/

Re: Google Kubernetes Engine is introducing a cluster management fee on June 6

#72
post #57
post #35

Note: Azure does not charge a master/cluster management fee (bias disclosure I work for Microsoft)

I'm not sure any provider appearing to capitalize on a momentary pricing decision is a great idea. All are too big and things change too fast for any crowing as if anything is a long term decision. Replies on another thread by alleged Google employees appear to indicate they are learning on the fly that doing support matters and costs money. There are a lot of comments from people wanting free things. You may get tho…

Not looking to capitalize just looking to state a fact that has been in place since the service was launched. In the earlier comments people were discussing/suggesting alternatives and I believe AKS is worth considering.

Re: Google Kubernetes Engine is introducing a cluster management fee on June 6

#73

The guarantees for uptime with 99.5% for regional and 99.5% for zonal clusters seem pretty good. Is this above the average in terms of cloud providers?

99.95% availability (three nines) is something a single datacenter infrastructure could do, it's even typical, but 99.5% is actually pretty low, that's worse than running a service from home with a single home internet connection.

Re: Google Kubernetes Engine is introducing a cluster management fee on June 6

#74

This is awful - I don’t think GCP is fully aware of their position in the market as the second, inferior choice. I took a bet on the underdog by using GCP and they bit me back in return. Especially considering their ‘default’ kubernetes config automatically sets you up with three(!) control planes in replication, that’s, as far as I understand, $~300 added to our monthly bill, for nothing. Oh, and per their docs, thr…

GCP is actually more the 3rd inferior option, behind Azure. Gartner lists Azure as just behind AWS for IaaS providers, and GCP a more distant 3rd:

https://pages.awscloud.com/Gartner-Magic-Quadrant-for-Infras...

Re: Google Kubernetes Engine is introducing a cluster management fee on June 6

#75

I run a hobby project in multiple zones because low latency is important, and Kubernetes makes it easy to do so. There's no way I'm going to pay an extra $73/mo -- I already pay for the computing resources, this should be free. Looks like I'll be moving away from GKE. It's a shame, I _was_ a big advocate.

We offer one free zonal cluster, which is specifically designed for your use case :)

I use more than one zone because I run TCP services which need low latency. I'll probably just switch to Digital Ocean.

Re: Google Kubernetes Engine is introducing a cluster management fee on June 6

#76

This is awful - I don’t think GCP is fully aware of their position in the market as the second, inferior choice. I took a bet on the underdog by using GCP and they bit me back in return. Especially considering their ‘default’ kubernetes config automatically sets you up with three(!) control planes in replication, that’s, as far as I understand, $~300 added to our monthly bill, for nothing. Oh, and per their docs, thr…

For what it's worth, we're seeing a GKE being the main reason prospective clients use GCP at Latacora, to a point where I'd say I was surprised if someone was on GCP but _not_ using GKE. Obviously that's a small subset of all companies, but GKE does seem like the goose that lays the golden eggs for them, at least insofar they care about startup market share.

I also think of them as the second, inferior cloud, but they're almost certainly the better k8s hoster. If you're serious about running k8s on AWS, there's a good chance you're doing something like CloudPosse's Terraform-based setup, not EKS.

Re: Google Kubernetes Engine is introducing a cluster management fee on June 6

#77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why people think cloud providers are benevolent provider of infra is beyond me. Their margin is because people are willing to pay it. Either run your own metal (k8s arguably makes this easier than VMs along in the past) or form a cloud coop, but absolutely don't be shocked when a business is taking money off the table because they can. Don't marry yourself to a provider, stay portable, it's just good risk management.…

Different companies make money using different approaches and it's perfectly valid to be upset at the approach a particular company is taking. Just because they provide a service doesn't mean they'll try to f * you over at every chance. For some it's bad long term business to do that. AWS, for example, begins with high prices and then lowers them over time. It costs money but you know the maximum. Google seems to be…

> AWS, for example, begins with high prices and then lowers them over time. It costs money but you know the maximum.

Past performance is no guarantee of future benevolence or reasonable behavior.

Re: Google Kubernetes Engine is introducing a cluster management fee on June 6

#78

Hey everyone - Seth from Google here. Please let us know if you have any questions! You can learn more about the pricing changes at https://cloud.google.com/kubernetes-engine/pricing .

This is really disappointing. I've been a big proponent of GKE not only to my employer but to my friends as well. I think it's the best Kubernetes implementation available. The justification for a management fee b/c there are abusers just feels like an excuse for making some extra revenue. Truly with Google's prowess you can detect and deal with abusers without having to raise cost for everybody. I'm worried this is going to dampen the momentum of Kubernetes adoption unfortunately...

Re: Google Kubernetes Engine is introducing a cluster management fee on June 6

#79
post #71

This is awful - I don’t think GCP is fully aware of their position in the market as the second, inferior choice. I took a bet on the underdog by using GCP and they bit me back in return. Especially considering their ‘default’ kubernetes config automatically sets you up with three(!) control planes in replication, that’s, as far as I understand, $~300 added to our monthly bill, for nothing. Oh, and per their docs, thr…

Too many people drank the cloud kool-aid. The move from day one was to create provider agnostic cloud architectures and repent the use of provider-specific services. That said they do make it damn hard. Our k8s cluster is as basic as it comes, no databases, simple deployments, but we do still have a dependency on Google Cloud Loadbalancer (which we hate). If pricing goes up too much from this we'll move, but the GCL…

We’re in the same situation — we’ve engineered for minimum provider-specific dependencies but GKE LoadBalancers were where they got us via arm twisting as well. There is no way to expose a cluster to the outside world in a production environment otherwise.

Re: Google Kubernetes Engine is introducing a cluster management fee on June 6

#80

This is awful - I don’t think GCP is fully aware of their position in the market as the second, inferior choice. I took a bet on the underdog by using GCP and they bit me back in return. Especially considering their ‘default’ kubernetes config automatically sets you up with three(!) control planes in replication, that’s, as far as I understand, $~300 added to our monthly bill, for nothing. Oh, and per their docs, thr…

Thank you for the feedback. The management fee is per cluster. You are not billed for replicated control planes. You can use the pricing calculator at https://cloud.google.com/products/calculator#tab=container to model pricing, but it should work out to $73/mo regardless of nodes or cluster size (again, because it's charged per-cluster).

There's also one completely free zonal cluster for hobbyist projects.

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