GCP was officially launched in 2011. Unlike AWS, GCP initially provided PaaS (Platform as a Service). Consequently, you can deploy your application directly instead of launching a VM. After that, GCP added some services and functionalities.

The most important service for Kubernetes users is GKE, which is a hosted Kubernetes service. So, you can get some relief from Kubernetes installation, upgrades, and management. This has a pay–as–you–go style approach to using the Kubernetes cluster. GKE is also a very active service that keeps providing new versions of Kubernetes in a timely manner and keeps coming up with new features and management tools for Kubernetes as well.

Let's take a look at what kind of foundation and services GCP provides and then we'll explore GKE.