Google is adding new ways to work with its Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE) with a new operations solution for managed Kubernetes. GKE Autopilot manages infrastructure so teams can focus on their software. 

“Until now, Kubernetes still involved a fair bit of manual assembly and tinkering to optimize it for your needs,” Drew Bradstock, group product manager for GKE, wrote in a post

While some businesses enjoy the flexibility they get with Kubernetes and GKE, Bradstock explained others are often overwhelmed with the amount of control and choices available. Autopilot takes pressure off businesses by managing the cluster infrastructure, control plane and nodes. It comes with strong security capabilities, ops-friendly configuration, improved resource utilization, and reduced Day-2 operational and maintenance costs. “Autopilot is a hands-off fully managed Kubernetes experience that allows you to focus more on your workloads and less on managing cluster infrastructure,” Bradstock wrote. 

Autopilot currently supports Datadog for logging and monitoring and GitLab for CI/CD. The team plans to add more integrations in the future. 

“In addition to the fully managed control plane that GKE has always provided, using the Autopilot mode of operation automatically applies industry best practices and can eliminate all node management operations, maximizing your cluster efficiency and helping to provide a stronger security posture,” wrote Bradstock.