Inefficient Horizontal Scaling of StatefulSets

Horizontal scaling of StatefulSets was inefficient due to StatefulSet’s inherent limitations.

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What Happened

Scaling horizontally caused issues with pod state and data integrity, as StatefulSet is not designed for horizontal scaling in certain scenarios.

Diagnosis Steps

1Found that scaling horizontally caused pods to be spread across multiple nodes, breaking data consistency.
2StatefulSet’s lack of support for horizontal scaling led to instability.

Root Cause

Misuse of StatefulSet for workloads that required horizontal scaling.

Fix/Workaround

• Switched to a Deployment with persistent volumes, which better supported horizontal scaling for the workload.
• Used StatefulSets only for workloads that require persistent state and stable network identities.

Lessons Learned

StatefulSets are not suitable for all workloads, particularly those needing efficient horizontal scaling.

How to Avoid

1Use StatefulSets only when necessary for specific use cases.
2Consider alternative Kubernetes resources for scalable, stateless workloads.

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