Deploy FalkorDB Enterprise on Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE)

Prerequisites

Google Cloud CLI (gcloud), authenticated with gcloud auth login.
A GCP project with billing enabled and permissions to create GKE clusters, node pools, and firewall rules.
kubectl, helm, and base64 on the machine that runs the installer.
At least 3 worker nodes with 4 CPU and 16 GB of memory each.
Outbound access from the cluster to pull images: registry.falkordb.cloud (Enterprise images, credentials required), docker.io, apecloud-registry.cn-zhangjiakou.cr.aliyuncs.com, registry.k8s.io, and ghcr.io — or registry.falkordb.cloud alone, since every image is also mirrored there (see Private registries).

Select the project and enable the required API:

gcloud config set project <project-id>
gcloud services enable container.googleapis.com

Required infrastructure

A production GKE install needs:

Resource	Purpose
VPC network	Network for the GKE cluster (the `default` network works, or bring your own).
GKE Standard cluster	Kubernetes control plane and a small system node pool. Use Standard mode, not Autopilot, for full node sizing control.
Node pool	Dedicated capacity for FalkorDB database workloads.
Compute Engine persistent disk CSI driver	Persistent volumes and snapshot-based backups (enabled by default on current GKE versions).
Load balancer or ingress with public DNS	External access to the Admin UI and Admin Server.

Set common variables used by the commands below:

export GCP_REGION=us-central1
export CLUSTER_NAME=falkordb-enterprise
export K8S_VERSION=1.34

1. Create the GKE cluster

Create a regional Standard cluster with a small system node pool:

gcloud container clusters create "$CLUSTER_NAME" \
  --region "$GCP_REGION" \
  --cluster-version "$K8S_VERSION" \
  --release-channel regular \
  --machine-type n2-standard-4 \
  --num-nodes 1 \
  --enable-autoscaling \
  --min-nodes 1 \
  --max-nodes 3 \
  --workload-pool="$(gcloud config get-value project).svc.id.goog"

Notes:

--release-channel regular pins the cluster to a supported, tested Kubernetes version.
The Compute Engine persistent disk CSI driver and VolumeSnapshot support ship enabled by default on current GKE versions.

2. Create a node pool for databases

Size this pool for your FalkorDB memory footprint. Memory-optimized n2-highmem machines are a good fit for graph workloads.

gcloud container node-pools create falkordb \
  --cluster "$CLUSTER_NAME" \
  --region "$GCP_REGION" \
  --machine-type n2-highmem-4 \
  --num-nodes 3 \
  --enable-autoscaling \
  --min-nodes 3 \
  --max-nodes 10 \
  --node-labels workload=falkordb

3. Get cluster credentials

gcloud container clusters get-credentials "$CLUSTER_NAME" \
  --region "$GCP_REGION"

kubectl config current-context
kubectl get nodes

4. Verify storage and snapshot support

FalkorDB Enterprise uses persistent volumes for databases and the Admin Server, and volume snapshots for backups. Verify GKE defaults:

kubectl get storageclass
kubectl get crd volumesnapshots.snapshot.storage.k8s.io

GKE ships the standard-rwo (balanced persistent disk) and premium-rwo (SSD persistent disk) storage classes, with standard-rwo marked default. Use premium-rwo for database volumes in production. If the volumesnapshots CRD already exists and a snapshot controller is active, skip the installer’s bundled one with --skip-snapshot-controller. Otherwise leave the default enabled.

Install FalkorDB Enterprise

Quick install

With the GKE context active, run the installer:

curl -fsSL https://falkordb.github.io/FalkorDB-Enterprise/install.sh | \
  bash -s -- \
    --registry-username '<username>' \
    --registry-password '<token>' \
    --yes

The installer keeps the Admin UI inside the Kubernetes cluster and prints the kubectl port-forward command to reach it, along with how to read the generated admin password. For an evaluation, --quick-access on a first install instead exposes the Admin UI and Admin Server API on the ingress controller’s address over plain HTTP. It uses the cluster’s default IngressClass, an IngressClass named nginx, or the only IngressClass in the cluster, in that order, and installs ingress-nginx only when none of these exists. The installer does not manage an ingress controller it did not install. The address is public only if that controller provides a public external address; an internal controller gives an internal one. See Quickstart for what the installer does and how to validate it.

Production install

For production, prepare a values file with TLS ingress, a stable JWT secret, and a bootstrap admin user as described in Production install. A ready-to-edit GKE example ships inside the chart at examples/values-gke.yaml — extract it with helm registry login registry.falkordb.cloud --username '<username>' (it prompts for your access token), then helm pull oci://registry.falkordb.cloud/falkordb/falkordb-enterprise --untar. Example GKE-specific values:

gateway:
  enabled: true
  ingress:
    enabled: true
    className: nginx
    hosts:
      - host: admin.example.com
    tls:
      - secretName: falkordb-enterprise-admin-tls
        hosts:
          - admin.example.com

adminServer:
  env:
    nodeEnv: production
    corsOrigin: https://admin.example.com
    cookieSecure: true
  persistence:
    enabled: true
    size: 8Gi
    storageClassName: premium-rwo

These values use className: nginx, so the cluster needs the ingress-nginx controller. The installer installs it only for --quick-access, so install it yourself first:

helm upgrade --install ingress-nginx ingress-nginx \
  --repo https://kubernetes.github.io/ingress-nginx \
  --namespace ingress-nginx --create-namespace

Then install:

curl -fsSL https://falkordb.github.io/FalkorDB-Enterprise/install.sh | \
  JWT_SECRET="$(openssl rand -hex 32)" bash -s -- \
    --registry-username '<username>' \
    --registry-password '<token>' \
    --kube-context "$(kubectl config current-context)" \
    --namespace falkordb-system \
    --kubeblocks-namespace kb-system \
    --values production-values.yaml \
    --yes

DNS

Point your Admin UI hostname at the ingress public IP:

kubectl get ingress -n falkordb-system

Create an A record for admin.example.com pointing at the ADDRESS shown, either in your DNS provider or in Cloud DNS:

gcloud dns record-sets create admin.example.com \
  --zone "<managed-zone>" \
  --type A \
  --ttl 300 \
  --rrdatas "<ingress-ip>"

Validate the install

helm status kubeblocks -n kb-system
helm status falkordb-enterprise -n falkordb-system
kubectl get pods -n kb-system
kubectl get pods -n falkordb-system
kubectl get ingress -n falkordb-system

With the production values file, open the Admin UI hostname. After a default install there is no Ingress: use the kubectl port-forward command the installer printed. Sign in with the bootstrap admin user; Open the Admin UI shows how to read its generated password. For OAuth sign-in, see Google OAuth setup.

Pod security admission

The installer labels falkordb-system with enforce=baseline. baseline is also enough for kb-system and for database namespaces. See Pod Security Admission levels for the measured level of each namespace and the workloads that cap it.

Clean up

Delete the Enterprise release first (see uninstall), then remove the GKE cluster:

gcloud container clusters delete "$CLUSTER_NAME" --region "$GCP_REGION" --quiet

Deleting the cluster removes its node pools, disks, and load balancers.

Get started

Install

Authentication

Deploy databases

Operations

Licensing

Security

Releases

Upgrade and uninstall

Troubleshooting

Deploy FalkorDB Enterprise on Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE)

Prerequisites

Required infrastructure

1. Create the GKE cluster

2. Create a node pool for databases

3. Get cluster credentials

4. Verify storage and snapshot support

Install FalkorDB Enterprise

Quick install

Production install

DNS

Validate the install

Pod security admission

Clean up

​Prerequisites

​Required infrastructure

​1. Create the GKE cluster

​2. Create a node pool for databases

​3. Get cluster credentials

​4. Verify storage and snapshot support

​Install FalkorDB Enterprise

​Quick install

​Production install

​DNS

​Validate the install

​Pod security admission

​Clean up

Prerequisites

Required infrastructure

1. Create the GKE cluster

2. Create a node pool for databases

3. Get cluster credentials

4. Verify storage and snapshot support

Install FalkorDB Enterprise

Quick install

Production install

DNS

Validate the install

Pod security admission

Clean up