GKE Cluster with 0 Node and Autopilot Enabled

Question

I use GKE for years and I wanted to experiment with GKE with AutoPilot mode, and my initial expectation was, it starts with 0 worker nodes, and whenever I deploy a workload, it automatically scales the nodes based on requested memory and CPU. However, I created a GKE Cluster, there is nothing related to nodes in UI, but in kubectl get nodes output I see there are 2 nodes. Do you have any idea how to start that cluster with no node initially?

Answer 1

The principle of GKE autopilot is NOT TO worry about the node, it's managed for you. No matter if there is 1, 2 or 10 node to your cluster, you don't pay for them, you pay only when a POD run in your cluster (CPU and Memory time usage).

So, you can't handle the number of node, number of pools and low level management like that, something similar to serverless product (Google prefers saying "nodeless" cluster)

At the opposite, it's great to already have resources provisioned that you don't pay on your cluster, you will deploy and scale quicker!

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EDIT 1

You can have a look to the pricing . You have a flat fee of $74.40 per month ($0.10/hour) for the control plane. And then you pay your pods (CPU + Memory).

You have 1 free cluster per Billing account.