Supported platforms
Cloud Service Mesh supports a variety of infrastructures (GKE/Kubernetes,Compute Engine) and environments (on-premises, other clouds). This pagedescribes the APIs and options for using Cloud Service Mesh across all ofthese options.
On Google Cloud
There are two choices of APIs on Google Cloud based on which infrastructure youplan to use.
If your workloads are exclusively on GKE, use the Istio APIs.
Use the fleet API to install Cloud Service Mesh on clusters in the fleet.
Choose the CA you want to use, MeshCA or CAS. The clusters in the fleet willall use the same CA, establishing trust across the workloads running on theclusters.
The Service Mesh UI is enabled automatically.
Managed control plane for GKE
The control plane provisioned for these clusters depends on whether you areadding clusters to an existing fleet or are provisioning a new fleet.
New fleets use the global, managed control plane. This control plane scalesacross the entire Google Cloud network and provides enhanced reliability andstability.
If you are adding clusters to an existing fleet, new clusters will use thesame managed control plane implementation as existing clusters.
Unmanaged Cloud Service Mesh
There is also an option to use an unmanaged, in-cluster control plane. Googlestrongly recommends using managed Cloud Service Mesh to let Google update andmaintain the mesh infrastructure. This option should only be used if the managedCloud Service Mesh does not support your use case. It requires users toperform regular releases and patches to keep the system updated.
VMs, GKE and or Proxyless gRPC
If your workloads are a combination of VMs and GKE, or useproxyless gRPC, you should use theService Routing APIs.These APIs let you define a mesh and configure the routing between services inthat mesh.
Off Google Cloud
Cloud Service Mesh supports GKE and attached clusters in avariety of environments. In this case, Cloud Service Mesh is part ofGKE Enterprise on Google Cloud. In these environments Cloud Service Mesh isinstalled in-cluster usingasmcli. The Istio APIs are installed in the clusterenabling the user to configure the service mesh for Kubernetes workloads.
Cloud Service Mesh supports the following environments:
- Google Distributed Cloud (software only) for VMware
- Google Distributed Cloud (software only) for bare metal
The following products are now deprecated and are in maintenance mode.
- GKE on AWS will be shut down on March 17, 2027.
- GKE on Azure will be shut down on March 17, 2027.
- Cloud Service Mesh support for EKS Kubernetes clusters on AWS will end onMarch 17, 2027.
- Cloud Service Mesh support for AKS Kubernetes clusters on Azure will end onMarch 17, 2027.
1.25.x
Only the following environments are supported for in-cluster Cloud Service Mesh1.25.x. All other environments are unsupported.
| Platform | Version |
|---|---|
| GKE on Google Cloud | We recommend that you enroll GKE clusters on Google Cloud in arelease channel. When enrolling, use the Regular release channel because other channels might be based on a GKE version that isn't supported. Cloud Service Mesh 1.25 supports the following GKE versions: 1.29-1.32. For more information about the GKE versions included in each release channel see the following: The GKE cluster must be Standard. GKE Autopilot cluster is not supported by the in-cluster control plane. In order to use the GKE Autopilot, you must choosemanaged Cloud Service Mesh. |
| Google Distributed Cloud (software only) for VMware 1.30-1.32 | Kubernetes version 1.30-1.32 |
| Google Distributed Cloud (software only) for bare metal 1.30-1.32 | Kubernetes version 1.30-1.32 |
| GKE on AWS (deprecated) | Kubernetes version 1.29-1.31 |
| GKE on Azure (deprecated) | Kubernetes version 1.29-1.31 |
| GKE attached clusters (deprecated) | Amazon EKS on Kubernetes 1.29-1.31 and Microsoft AKS on Kubernetes 1.29-1.31 |
1.24.x
Only the following environments are supported for in-cluster Cloud Service Mesh1.24.x. All other environments are unsupported.
| Platform | Version |
|---|---|
| GKE on Google Cloud | We recommend that you enroll GKE clusters on Google Cloud in arelease channel. When enrolling, use the Regular release channel because other channels might be based on a GKE version that isn't supported. Cloud Service Mesh 1.24 supports the following GKE versions: 1.29-1.32. For more information about the GKE versions included in each release channel see the following: The GKE cluster must be Standard. GKE Autopilot cluster is not supported by the in-cluster control plane. In order to use the GKE Autopilot, you must choosemanaged Cloud Service Mesh. |
| Google Distributed Cloud (software only) for VMware 1.30-1.32 | Kubernetes version 1.30-1.32 |
| Google Distributed Cloud (software only) for bare metal 1.30-1.32 | Kubernetes version 1.30-1.32 |
| GKE on AWS (deprecated) | Kubernetes version 1.29-1.31 |
| GKE on Azure (deprecated) | Kubernetes version 1.29-1.31 |
| GKE attached clusters (deprecated) | Amazon EKS on Kubernetes 1.29-1.31 and Microsoft AKS on Kubernetes 1.29-1.31 |
1.23.x
Only the following environments are supported for in-cluster Cloud Service Mesh1.23.x. All other environments are unsupported.
| Platform | Version |
|---|---|
| GKE on Google Cloud | We recommend that you enroll GKE clusters on Google Cloud in arelease channel. When enrolling, use the Regular release channel because other channels might be based on a GKE version that isn't supported. Cloud Service Mesh 1.23 supports the following GKE versions: 1.29-1.32. For more information about the GKE versions included in each release channel see the following: The GKE cluster must be Standard. GKE Autopilot cluster is not supported by the in-cluster control plane. In order to use the GKE Autopilot, you must choosemanaged Cloud Service Mesh. |
| Google Distributed Cloud (software only) for VMware 1.30-1.32 | Kubernetes version 1.30-1.32 |
| Google Distributed Cloud (software only) for bare metal 1.30-1.32 | Kubernetes version 1.30-1.32 |
| GKE on AWS (deprecated) | Kubernetes version 1.29-1.31 |
| GKE on Azure (deprecated) | Kubernetes version 1.29-1.31 |
| GKE attached clusters (deprecated) | Amazon EKS on Kubernetes 1.29-1.31 and Microsoft AKS on Kubernetes 1.29-1.31 |
For a list of environments that are supported for managed Cloud Service Mesh,seemanaged Cloud Service Mesh Environments.
Except as otherwise noted, the content of this page is licensed under theCreative Commons Attribution 4.0 License, and code samples are licensed under theApache 2.0 License. For details, see theGoogle Developers Site Policies. Java is a registered trademark of Oracle and/or its affiliates.
Last updated 2026-02-19 UTC.