# Overview

This is a multi-part, self-paced exercise to explore the platform's capabilities for "Lifecycle Management" of Google GKE Clusters.

## What Will You Do by Part

| Part | What will you do? |
| --- | --- |
| 1 | Configure and Provision a GKE Cluster using RCTL or the web console, view the cluster through the integrated monitoring and dashboards, securely access the cluster's API server using zero trust kubectl |
| 2 | Scale the cluster by updating the number of nodes in an existing node pool, adding and removing node pools |
| 3 | Upgrade the Kubernetes version of the GKE cluster's control plane and nodes |
| 4 | Deprovision the cluster and remove the underlying infrastructure |

## Assumptions

- You have access to an [Google Cloud account](https://cloud.google.com/)
- You have sufficient privileges to create GCP credentials to allow the controller to provision resources on your behalf as part of the GKE cluster lifecycle process.
- You have downloaded the [RCTL CLI](https://docs.rafay.co/cli/overview/)
- You have downloaded and initialized the [RCTL CLI](https://docs.rafay.co/cli/config/)

Note

The instructions describe the process using a combination of the RCTL CLI and the web console. The same steps can be performed using the REST APIs or a [Terraform provider](https://registry.terraform.io/providers/RafaySystems/rafay/latest) for automation.

## Documentation

To access the documentation for Lifecycle Management for GKE Cluster, click [here](https://docs.rafay.co/clusters/gke/overview/)