Kubernetes on GKE
This deck is easiest to understand by separating the Kubernetes contract from the Google Cloud implementation. GKE manages the control plane and, in Autopilot, the node infrastructure as well; Shopwave still owns its workloads, policies, data and service objectives. The Kubernetes objects stay familiar, but GKE supplies controllers, infrastructure and safe defaults around them. This is why a team can move from an on-premises cluster without rewriting every workload, while still needing to redesign networking, identity and operational ownership for the cloud environment.
A useful inspection step is `gcloud container clusters describe shopwave-prod --region europe-west1`. Read the output as evidence, not as a ritual: first confirm the desired object exists, then look at status conditions, events and the Google Cloud resource it represents. In production, capture the expected result in a runbook or automated check so an operator can distinguish slow reconciliation from a configuration error.
Production gotcha: A managed service removes infrastructure toil but never transfers application reliability or access design to Google. The safe habit is to verify quotas, regional availability and feature support against current Google Cloud documentation before rollout. The course map shows where this provider-specific deck sits in the larger journey.
Google-managed control planeRegional API, etcd and controllers
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