Introduction to Production Kubernetes
Running Kubernetes in production requires careful planning and adherence to best practices to ensure reliability, security, and scalability.
1. Resource Management
Always set resource requests and limits for your containers. This prevents resource starvation and ensures fair distribution across your cluster.
resources:
requests:
memory: "128Mi"
cpu: "250m"
limits:
memory: "256Mi"
cpu: "500m"2. Health Checks
Implement both liveness and readiness probes. Liveness probes detect hung containers, while readiness probes ensure traffic only reaches healthy pods.
3. Security Hardening
Use RBAC for access control, enable Pod Security Policies, and scan container images for vulnerabilities. Never run containers as root.
4. Monitoring and Logging
Implement comprehensive monitoring with Prometheus and logging with ELK stack or Loki. Visibility is crucial for production systems.
5. Backup Strategy
Regularly backup etcd and have a disaster recovery plan. Test your recovery procedures regularly.
6. Network Policies
Implement network policies to control pod-to-pod communication. This adds an extra layer of security.
7. Multi-Environment Strategy
Use namespaces to separate environments. Implement proper CI/CD pipelines for automated deployments.
Conclusion
Following these best practices will help you run stable and secure Kubernetes clusters in production.