GKE ambient networking is now available in Preview through an allowlist.

GKE ambient networking is now available in Preview through an allowlist.

GKE ambient networking provides a simplified, sidecarless deployment model for a service mesh with Layer 4 capabilities. By moving proxy functionality to node-level components integrated into GKE Dataplane V2, ambient networking reduces resource overhead, eliminates workload restarts for proxy updates, and simplifies mesh lifecycle management.

The Preview release supports single-cluster Layer 4 mesh capabilities using the Gateway API, which includes mutual TLS (mTLS), service discovery, Layer 4 traffic management, and Layer 4 telemetry.

For more information, see Ambient networking overview and Prepare GKE ambient networking.