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KUBERNETES · DEEP DIVE

Cluster Autoscaler

The standard upstream cluster autoscaler, wired to your hardware. Workers scale up when pods are pending, down when nodes are underutilised, inside bounds that are enforced strictly.

app.virtconsole.com/kubernetes/clusters/prod/pools
VirtConsole node pool screen showing cluster autoscaler bounds and current worker count
01

How it scales

A real autoscaler, not a cron script.

Scale up on pending pods

When pods cannot schedule, workers are added to the pool that can host them, and appear in the LB pool within seconds.

Scale down when idle

Underutilised nodes drain gracefully and leave, respecting PodDisruptionBudgets and scale-down ordering.

Strict bounds

Min and max per pool are enforced at the platform level, so costs never run away overnight.

02

Working with pools

Autoscaling composes with everything else.

Per-pool bounds

Each pool scales independently. Keep a general pool warm while a GPU pool sleeps at zero.

Manual override

Type a number and hit Scale at any time. In-flight pods keep running while the pool adjusts.

Rotation-aware

Scale-down ordering survives plan rotations, so the pool never scrambles which node leaves next.

03

Built to operate

The unglamorous parts are handled.

Tokens renew themselves

The in-cluster autoscaler token rotates automatically 30 days before expiry, with a heads-up email.

Placement that survives pressure

Headroom is measured against each node’s effective memory ceiling, so a sanctioned overcommit node counts its real capacity and an over-allocated one sorts last.

Standard components

Upstream cluster autoscaler plus metrics-server, so kubectl top and HPA behave exactly as documented.

Deeper look

Autoscaling bounds live on the cluster page, not a hidden setting

Pool min/max, control plane status and worker inventory sit side by side on the same screen the autoscaler reports back to.

app.virtconsole.com/kubernetes/clusters/prod
VirtConsole Kubernetes cluster detail page with control plane status, node pools and worker inventory

The full cluster page the autoscaler works against

More of the platform

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