Horizontal Pod Autoscaler Under-Scaling During Peak Load

HPA failed to scale the pods appropriately during a sudden spike in load.

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What Happened

The HPA did not scale the pods properly during a traffic surge due to incorrect metric thresholds.

Diagnosis Steps

1Checked HPA settings and identified that the CPU utilization threshold was too high.
2Verified the metric server was reporting correct metrics.

Root Cause

Incorrect scaling thresholds set in the HPA configuration.

Fix/Workaround

• Adjusted HPA thresholds to scale more aggressively under higher loads.
• Increased the replica count to handle the peak load.

Lessons Learned

HPA thresholds should be fine-tuned based on expected load patterns.

How to Avoid

1Regularly review and adjust HPA configurations to reflect actual workload behavior.
2Use custom metrics for better scaling control.