Uncontrolled Resource Spikes After Scaling Large StatefulSets

Scaling large StatefulSets led to resource spikes that caused system instability.

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What Happened

Scaling up a large StatefulSet resulted in CPU and memory spikes that overwhelmed the cluster, causing instability and outages.

Diagnosis Steps

1Monitored CPU and memory usage and found that new StatefulSet pods were consuming more resources than anticipated.
2Examined pod configurations and discovered they were not optimized for the available resources.

Root Cause

Inefficient resource requests and limits for StatefulSet pods during scaling.

Fix/Workaround

• Adjusted resource requests and limits for StatefulSet pods to better match the actual usage.
• Implemented a rolling upgrade to distribute the scaling load more evenly.

Lessons Learned

Always account for resource spikes and optimize requests for large StatefulSets.

How to Avoid

1Set proper resource limits and requests for StatefulSets, especially during scaling events.
2Test scaling for large StatefulSets in staging environments to evaluate resource impact.

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