Container Engine for Kubernetes now supports self-managed nodes. A self-managed node is a worker node hosted on a compute instance (or instance pool) that you've created yourself in Compute service, rather than on a compute instance that Container Engine for Kubernetes has created for you. Self-managed nodes are often referred to as Bring Your Own Nodes (BYON). Unlike managed nodes and virtual nodes (which are grouped into managed node pools and virtual node pools respectively), self-managed nodes are not grouped into node pools.

When you create the compute instance to host a self-managed node, you specify the Kubernetes cluster to which to add the instance.

Both the cluster to which you add a self-managed node, and the image you use for the compute instance hosting the self-managed node, must meet certain requirements.

For more information, see Working with Self-Managed Nodes.