Kubernetes Scaling with HPA and VPA

This repository demonstrates the setup and configuration of Kubernetes Horizontal Pod Autoscaler (HPA) and Vertical Pod Autoscaler (VPA) to achieve efficient scaling in a microservice environment. It includes manifests and configurations for deploying a sample application on Kubernetes with scaling capabilities.

Overview

This project provides:

• Horizontal Pod Autoscaling (HPA) to scale pods based on CPU usage.
• Vertical Pod Autoscaling (VPA) to adjust pod resource requests automatically.
• Examples of CI/CD integration using GitHub Actions and Docker images.

Project Structure

├── k8s-manifests          # Kubernetes deployment and service manifests
├── examples               # Contain Exanple for VPA, HPA and combined one
├── .github/workflows      # GitHub Actions workflows for CI/CD pipeline
└── README.md              # Project documentation

Key Files

• k8s-manifests/deployment.yaml - Configures deployment with autoscaling.
• k8s-manifests/hpa.yaml - Sets up Horizontal Pod Autoscaling (HPA).
• k8s-manifests/vpa.yaml - Sets up Vertical Pod Autoscaling (VPA).
• .github/workflows - CI/CD pipeline to build and push Docker images.

Features

• Horizontal Pod Autoscaling (HPA): Automatically scales the number of pod replicas based on CPU utilization.
• Vertical Pod Autoscaling (VPA): Dynamically adjusts CPU and memory resource requests and limits for containers.
• Example manifests for deploying and scaling a sample application.

Requirements

• Kubernetes Cluster - Minimum version 1.18.
• kubectl - To apply manifests and manage the cluster.
• Docker - For building images.
• GitHub CLI - Recommended for managing GitHub Actions locally.

Setup Instructions

1. Clone the Repository

git clone https://github.com/sajadbahar/scaling_kubernetes_hpa_vpa.git
cd scaling_kubernetes_hpa_vpa

2. Configure Docker Registry and CI/CD

Make sure to update the Docker image reference in .github/workflows with your Docker registry credentials.

3. Deploy the Application

Use kubectl to apply the manifests:

kubectl apply -f k8s-manifests/

4. Verify Deployment and Scaling

Check the status of your deployments and autoscaling:

kubectl get pods
kubectl describe hpa
kubectl describe vpa

Environment Variables

To facilitate flexible configuration, use environment variables for sensitive data and deployment-specific values.

Metrics Collection

To enable metrics collection for autoscaling, you will need a metrics server in your Kubernetes cluster. You can deploy Prometheus as a Helm chart for collecting metrics or use any other preferred setup.

CI/CD Pipeline

The repository is set up with GitHub Actions CI/CD, which automates the process of building and pushing the Docker image. Make sure to review and configure the .github/workflows file to set up your specific repository, image, and credentials.

Environment Variables

To make image configuration dynamic, specify the Docker image repository as an environment variable:

containers:
  - name: worker
    image: ${DOCKER_REPO:-your-default-image}

Update the deployment YAML files with environment variables as required by your CI/CD setup.

Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Please submit a pull request or open an issue for discussion.

License

This project is licensed under the MIT License - see the LICENSE file for details.

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This repository is a demonstration of Kubernetes autoscaling features and is intended for learning purposes. Please Read the Medium Article here Efficient Scaling in Kubernetes with HPA + VPA