This tutorial walks you through setting up Kubernetes the hard way. This guide is not for people looking for a fully automated command to bring up a Kubernetes cluster. If that's you, then check out [Google Kubernetes Engine](https://cloud.google.com/kubernetes-engine), or the [Getting Started Guides](https://kubernetes.io/docs/setup).
Kubernetes The Hard Way is optimized for learning, which means taking the long route to ensure you understand each task required to bootstrap a Kubernetes cluster.
> The results of this tutorial should not be viewed as production ready, and may receive limited support from the community, but don't let that stop you from learning!
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The target audience for this tutorial is someone who plans to support a production Kubernetes cluster and wants to understand how everything fits together.
Kubernetes The Hard Way guides you through bootstrapping a highly available Kubernetes cluster with end-to-end encryption between components and RBAC authentication.
This tutorial assumes you have access to the [Google Cloud Platform](https://cloud.google.com). While GCP is used for basic infrastructure requirements, the lessons learned in this tutorial can be applied to other platforms.
