As a DevOps engineer, managing resources in Kubernetes is part of our everyday routine. Today, I want to introduce you to a very important concept: VPA, which stands for Vertical Pod Autoscaler.
🧠 What is VPA?
When traffic grows on your application, Kubernetes offers two approaches to handle the load:
HPA (Horizontal Pod Autoscaler) – Creates extra pods (clones) to distribute the load.
VPA (Vertical Pod Autoscaler) – Makes the existing pod stronger by boosting its CPU and RAM.
Today, we’re concentrating on VPA, where we update the existing pod instead of generating another.
🔧 Why Use VPA?
Let’s imagine your website suddenly experiences a boost in traffic. If your application isn’t built for horizontal scaling (e.g., owing to stateful components), generating several pods might not work. In that circumstance, VPA boosts the computational power of the current pod.
For example:
Your pod initially had 512Mi RAM and 0.5 CPU.
VPA notices excessive load and upgrades it to 1Gi RAM and 1 CPU.
Now, your identical pod becomes…
