A site reliability engineer needs to perform a manual blue-green node pool upgrade on a production Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE) Standard cluster to migrate workload Pods from node pool `pool-v1` to a newly provisioned node pool `pool-v2` with minimal application disruption. Sequence the required administrative steps in the correct operational order.
- 1Provision the new node pool `pool-v2` with the updated machine configuration using `gcloud container node-pools create`.
- 2Cordon all nodes in `pool-v1` using `kubectl cordon` to mark them as unschedulable.
- 3Drain all nodes in `pool-v1` using `kubectl drain --ignore-daemonsets` to evict existing Pods and trigger rescheduling onto `pool-v2`.
- 4Verify that all application Pods are healthy on `pool-v2` and delete `pool-v1` using `gcloud container node-pools delete`.
Answer
The correct operational sequence for a manual GKE blue-green node pool migration is: 1) Provision the target node pool `pool-v2`, 2) Cordon the nodes in `pool-v1`, 3) Drain the nodes in `pool-v1`, and 4) Delete the original node pool `pool-v1` after validating workload stability.
In a manual GKE blue-green node pool update, new capacity (`pool-v2`) must be created first. The old nodes (`pool-v1`) are then cordoned to block new Pod assignments, followed by draining the old nodes to safely relocate running workloads to `pool-v2`. Once all workloads are confirmed operational on `pool-v2`, `pool-v1` can be safely deleted.
Step-by-Step Solution
Key Concept
Manual Blue-Green GKE Node Pool Migration Workflow