Implementing a Cost-Effective Solution for Backend of Mobile Phone Game

C.

To reduce network costs for the mobile phone game running on a Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE) cluster, the recommended approach is to use a Google Cloud HTTP Load Balancer as Ingress. This option is the best as it provides several advantages such as scalability, cost-effectiveness, and security.

A load balancer can distribute the incoming traffic to multiple backend instances running on the GKE cluster. This helps to prevent a single instance from getting overwhelmed by too much traffic, which could lead to service degradation or downtime. By using an HTTP Load Balancer as Ingress, you can optimize network traffic between the client and server, reduce latency, and improve the user experience.

Now let's go over the other options:

A. Configuring the VPC as a Shared VPC Host project: This option can help reduce costs by allowing multiple projects to share a common VPC network. However, it doesn't directly address the network costs associated with serving HTTP requests from users on a GKE cluster.

B. Configuring your network services on the Standard Tier: The Standard Tier provides basic network services but doesn't offer advanced features such as load balancing or advanced routing. Therefore, it's not an ideal solution for reducing network costs for a mobile phone game running on a GKE cluster.

C. Configuring your Kubernetes cluster as a Private Cluster: This option provides additional security benefits by isolating the GKE cluster from the public internet. However, it doesn't directly address the network costs associated with serving HTTP requests from users on a GKE cluster.

In summary, configuring a Google Cloud HTTP Load Balancer as Ingress is the best option for reducing network costs for a mobile phone game running on a GKE cluster.