Advanced clusters

This document provides information about the advanced clusters feature and the implications of enabling it. The advanced clusters feature is available for Preview for version 1.31 admin clusters and user clusters. The advanced clusters feature is in GA for version 1.32 admin clusters and user clusters and higher.

Note the following differences between versions:

In version 1.31, the advanced cluster feature is in preview.
- You can enable advanced cluster at cluster creation time for new 1.31 clusters only.
- After advanced cluster is enabled, you won't be able to upgrade the cluster to 1.32. Only enable advanced cluster in a test environment.
In version 1.32, the advanced cluster feature is GA.
- By default, clusters are created as advanced clusters. You have to explicitly set enableAdvancedCluster to false in the cluster configuration file if you want to create a non-advanced cluster.
- For clusters that have the advanced clusters feature enabled, cluster upgrades are supported.
In version 1.33 and higher, all new clusters are created as advanced clusters. If you set enableAdvancedCluster to false , cluster creation fails.

This page is for Admins and architects who define IT solutions and system architecture in accordance with company strategy, and create and manage policies related to user permissions. To learn more about common roles and example tasks that we reference in Google Cloud content, see Common GKE user roles and tasks .

Consistent experience and implementation

The advanced clusters feature implements a cluster architecture that better aligns Google Distributed Cloud for VMware with the rest of the Google Distributed Cloud products. A cluster that has advanced clusters enabled has a shared platform with other Google Distributed Cloud clusters. This shared platform uses the same controllers and agents, which increases reliability and can help Google provide better support. There's also improved performance for cluster operations when advanced clusters is enabled.

The new architecture brings a consistent experience and implementation with all other Google Distributed Cloud offerings, and you can benefit from feature parity with other Google Distributed Cloud offerings in the long run.

Access to new features

You enable advanced clusters to access the latest features and capability, such as topology domains , which gives you better control over how your workloads are distributed across your cluster nodes.

In future minor releases, advanced features, such as topology domains, are available for advanced clusters only.

Differences when running advanced clusters

When you enable advanced clusters, some features or capabilities might not work the same as they do for clusters without the feature enabled. Some of these changes apply only while the feature is in Preview. The differences are noted throughout the documentation, where relevant.

The following table lists the features supported for Google Distributed Cloud for VMware, their availability status when advanced clusters is enabled , and any differences in behavior or use:

Feature/capability	1.31 Adv. clusters (Preview)	1.32 Not enabled	1.32 Advanced clusters (GA)	1.33 Advanced clusters (GA)	Differences
Advanced clusters	Preview	GA	GA	GA	Not supported
Topology domains	Preview		Preview	Preview	Changes apply. For more information see Set up topology domains and related cluster configuration references.
Regional fleet membership	GA	GA	GA	GA	No differences.
Version skew n+2 admin cluster - user cluster		GA	GA	GA	Not recommended: Since we don't support managing a lower version preview user cluster, this feature shouldn't be used.
Version skew n+2 node pool - user cluster		GA	GA	GA	Not recommended: Since we don't support managing a lower version preview user cluster, this feature shouldn't be used.
Max surge setting for node pool updates	Preview	Preview	Preview	Preview	No differences.
cgroup v2 for nodes	GA	GA	GA	GA	No differences.
DSR mode for Dataplane V2	GA	GA	GA	GA	No differences.
BinAuthz for Controlplane V2 user clusters	GA	GA	GA	GA	No differences.
User-managed admin workstation	GA	GA	GA	GA	No differences.
StatefulSet CSI migration tool	GA	GA	GA	GA	No differences.
Seesaw to MetalLB migration	GA	GA	GA	GA	No differences.
Disable bundled ingress	GA	GA	GA	GA	No differences.
Admin cluster prepared credentials		GA	GA	GA	No differences.
Storage policy for a user cluster	GA	GA	GA	GA	No differences.
Storage policy for an admin cluster	GA	GA	GA	GA	No differences.
Node auto repair	GA	GA	GA	GA	Changes apply: If advanced cluster is enabled, the periodic health checks aren't run as part of auto repair. For information and other differences, see Automatic node repair and health checking .
High availability admin cluster	GA	GA	GA	GA	No differences.
VM-Host affinity		GA		GA	Changes apply. Capability for this feature can be covered partly by topology domains , but this feature isn't fully covered in version 1.32.
Generate configuration files from an existing cluster	GA	GA	GA	GA	No differences.
Google Cloud Managed Service for Prometheus system metrics collection	GA	GA	GA	GA	No differences.
Upgrade and rollback of nodepools		GA	GA	GA	No differences.
Update private registry credentials	GA	GA	GA	GA	No differences.
Admin cluster backup and restore with gkectl		Preview	Preview	GA	Changes apply. Updated the `gkectl` command for improved restoring of admin clusters and to support backing up and restoring user clusters. For more information, see Back up and restore advanced clusters with gkectl
User cluster nodepool autoscaling	GA	GA	GA	GA	No differences.
Cluster automatic node resizing		GA		GA	No differences.
Multiple vSphere cluster support	GA	GA	GA	GA	No differences.
Multiple vSphere data centers support	GA	GA	GA	GA	No differences.
OpenID Connect (OIDC) support for authentication to clusters	GA	GA	GA	GA	No differences.
CA certificate rotation		GA	GA	GA	No differences.
Workload Identity Federation support	GA	GA	GA	GA	No differences.
AIS with LDAP authentication support	GA	GA	GA	GA	No differences.
Always-on secrets encryption without hardware security module (HSM)		GA	GA	GA	No differences.
Update vCenter CA certificates with gkectl	GA	GA	GA	GA	No differences.
Egress NAT gateway	GA	GA	GA	GA	No differences.
Admin cluster fleet registration	GA	GA	GA	GA	No differences.
Windows node pool support		GA			Not supported.
`containerd` runtime for Windows node pool		GA			Not supported.
Container-Optimized OS node pool support		GA	GA	GA	No differences.
CoreDNS as the cluster DNS provider	GA	GA	GA	GA	No differences.
User cluster lifecycle in the Google Cloud console		GA	Partial support	GA	Changes apply. For more information, see Choose a tool to manage cluster lifecycle .
Admin cluster node creation with Container-Optimized OS		GA	GA	GA	No differences.
Multi-NIC capability for Pods	GA	GA	GA	GA	No differences.
MetalLB load balancer option	GA	GA	GA	GA	Changes apply. For details, see Bundled load balancing with MetalLB .
`gkectl update admin` support for enabling and disabling Cloud Logging and Cloud Monitoring	GA	GA	GA	GA	No differences.
Windows Dataplane V2 support		GA			Not supported.
Summary API metrics	GA	GA	GA	GA	No differences.
`gkectl update credentials` support for updating component access service account key	Partial support	GA	Partial support	Partial support	Changes apply. For details about what is or isn't supported for updating credentials for advanced clusters, see Advanced cluster differences for rotating service account keys .
Prepared credentials for user cluster		GA	GA	GA	No differences.
Dry run upgrade of user cluster	GA	GA	GA	GA	No differences.
Asynchronous upgrade of user cluster	GA	GA	GA	GA	No differences.
Asynchronous upgrade of admin cluster	GA	GA	GA	GA	No differences.
Sequential update of node pools		GA	GA	GA	No differences.
Create volume snapshot with vSphere CSI driver	Preview	Preview	Preview	Preview	No differences.
Create user cluster with Controlplane V2 enabled	GA	GA	GA	GA	No differences.
Storage migration with SPBM	GA	GA	GA	GA	No differences.
Migrate a datastore to a SPBM	GA	GA	GA	GA	No differences.
Migrate a user cluster to Controlplane V2	GA	GA	GA	GA	No differences.
Migrate to an HA admin cluster	GA	GA	GA	GA	No differences.
Migrate configuration settings for F5 BIG-IP	GA	GA	GA	GA	No differences.
Load balancer	Partial support	GA	GA	GA	Changes apply. For more information, refer to the relevant load balancer and cluster configuration reference documentation.
Preflight checks	Partial support	GA	GA	GA	No differences.
Hardware requirements	GA	GA	GA	GA	Changes apply. For details, see CPU, RAM, and storage requirements .
Snapshot	GA	GA	GA	GA	No differences.
Private registry	GA	GA	GA	GA	Changes apply. For details about using a private registry on an advanced cluster, see Limitations with advanced clusters and the full bundle .
IPAM, DNS , NTP and multi-NIC	GA	GA	GA	GA	No differences.
Cluster creation/update/deletion	GA	GA	GA	GA	Changes apply. Only minor differences. For more information, refer to the relevant cluster operation documentation.
Proxy	GA	GA	GA	GA	No differences.
NodePool update policy		GA	GA	GA	No differences.
Diagnose		GA	GA	GA	Changes apply. vCenter-related checks aren't available for advanced clusters. Since there's no longer a `onprem-user-cluster-controller` controller, the Diagnose cluster issues guide is obsolete for advanced clusters. For version 1.32 advanced clusters, the `gkectl diagnose cluster` command runs health checks for the specified cluster.
vSphere tags and VM tracking		GA		GA	No differences.
vSphere host group		GA		GA	No differences.
Logging and monitoring	GA	GA	GA	GA	No differences.
Anti affinity groups		GA	GA	GA	No differences.
Non-HA user cluster control plane		GA			Not supported.

What's next

Create clusters with advanced cluster enabled:

Advanced clusters Stay organized with collections Save and categorize content based on your preferences.

Consistent experience and implementation

Access to new features

Differences when running advanced clusters

What's next

Advanced clusters