There are a couple reasons to do it manually and/or outsite GKE, notably: 1) Cost. In VPSs like Digital Ocean/Scaleway, there's usually a large network out tra

There are a couple reasons to do it manually and/or outsite GKE, notably: 1) Cost. In VPSs like Digital Ocean/Scaleway, there's usually a large network out transfer quota included in the price, which just isn't there with GCP, where you pay for network usage on a metered basis. 2) Learning. Although you can defer most of the heavy work to GKE, it's still good to understand the moving parts so you can make better choices as you grow.