Many people say Kubernetes networking is confusing—and they are right. Online guides often include complex diagrams, multiple layers of routing, service meshes, and custom controllers. For engineers who are new to GKE, it all feels overwhelming.
But production networking on GKE does not need to be complicated.
In fact, GKE already includes most of the important networking pieces you need. The challenge is to use these features correctly and avoid adding extra tools unless they are really necessary.
This post explains how to create a simple, stable, and effective networking setup that works for real production workloads.
Understanding the Basics
At the heart of Kubernetes networking are two ideas:
- Pods each get their own IP address.
- Services give a stable address for other pods to connect to.
Because pod IPs change often, services make your internal networking predictable. GKE handles internal routing for you, so applications inside the cluster can talk to each other without extra configuration.
This simple foundation already solves many problems. You only need more tools when your application has special requirements.
Choosing an Ingress Method
Many teams immediately install third-party ingress controllers like NGINX or Traefik. On GKE, this is usually unnecessary. The native GKE Ingress or Gateway API is almost always the best starting point.
GKE’s built-in options give you:
- automatic HTTPS
- a global load balancer
- managed certificates
- autoscaling
- integrated health checks
You don’t need to manage replicas, upgrades, or logs for an internal proxy layer. The cloud does the heavy lifting for you.
This makes the setup easier to maintain and reduces the chance of failure.
Why the Global Load Balancer Matters
When you create a GKE Ingress, Google automatically builds a Global Load Balancer. This is a powerful feature because global load balancing normally requires advanced networking skills—but GKE makes it automatic.
The load balancer:
- terminates HTTPS
- routes requests to the closest healthy backend
- scales with your traffic
- protects against DDoS attacks
- integrates with Cloud CDN
For most applications, this setup provides fast, secure, production-grade traffic handling without extra work.
Using NAT for Outbound Traffic
Production workloads often need to call external APIs or services on the internet. To keep this secure and controlled, GKE works well with Cloud NAT.
Cloud NAT lets your pods:
- make outbound connections
- use a fixed public IP
- avoid exposing your cluster
- avoid running NAT gateways inside Kubernetes
This keeps outbound traffic simple and safe without adding components to your cluster.
Keeping the Network Clean
The best networking setups are the ones with fewer moving parts. A clean production-ready design usually includes:
- GKE Services for internal traffic
- GKE Ingress or Gateway API for incoming traffic
- Google Global Load Balancer for HTTPS
- Cloud NAT for outbound connections
- DNS pointing to the load balancer
This design is easy to understand, works at scale, and avoids the headaches of running custom networking tools.
What You Don’t Need (Yet)
Many tools look attractive but often add complexity before you really need them. Most small or medium teams can avoid:
- service meshes
- NGINX or Traefik Ingress
- custom proxies
- multiple ingress layers
- complex firewall rules
- multi-cluster routing
These tools are useful in large organizations, but they slow down smaller teams and require constant maintenance.
The Goal: Networking That Helps You, Not Slows You Down
A good GKE networking setup should make your life easier. It should be simple enough to understand, stable enough for production, and flexible enough to grow as your application grows.
If your team can explain the networking setup in one whiteboard diagram, you are on the right path.
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