Kubernetes Best Practices for Production

Kubernetes has become the de facto standard for container orchestration, but running it in production requires careful planning and adherence to best practices. In this guide, we'll cover the essential practices that will help you run a reliable, secure, and efficient Kubernetes cluster.

1. Resource Management

One of the most critical aspects of running Kubernetes in production is proper resource management. Without it, you risk resource contention, pod evictions, and unpredictable application behavior.

Always Set Resource Requests and Limits

Every container should have resource requests and limits defined. Requests guarantee that amount of resources, while limits prevent containers from consuming more than specified.

apiVersion: v1
kind: Pod
metadata:
  name: my-app
spec:
  containers:
  - name: app
    image: my-app:latest
    resources:
      requests:
        memory: "256Mi"
        cpu: "250m"
      limits:
        memory: "512Mi"
        cpu: "500m"

2. High Availability

Production workloads need to be resilient to failures. Kubernetes provides several mechanisms to achieve high availability.

Use Pod Disruption Budgets

Pod Disruption Budgets (PDBs) ensure that a minimum number of pods remain available during voluntary disruptions like node maintenance or cluster upgrades.

apiVersion: policy/v1
kind: PodDisruptionBudget
metadata:
  name: my-app-pdb
spec:
  minAvailable: 2
  selector:
    matchLabels:
      app: my-app

Deploy Multiple Replicas

Always run multiple replicas of your application and spread them across different nodes using pod anti-affinity rules.

3. Security Best Practices

Security in Kubernetes is multi-layered. Here are the essential security practices you should implement.

Use Network Policies

Network policies control traffic flow between pods. By default, all pods can communicate with each other—network policies let you restrict this.

Run Containers as Non-Root

Always configure your containers to run as non-root users. This limits the potential damage if a container is compromised.

securityContext:
  runAsNonRoot: true
  runAsUser: 1000
  readOnlyRootFilesystem: true

Use Secrets Management

Never hardcode secrets in your container images or configuration files. Use Kubernetes Secrets or external secret management solutions like HashiCorp Vault.

4. Monitoring and Observability

You can't manage what you can't measure. Comprehensive monitoring is essential for production Kubernetes.

• Metrics: Use Prometheus for collecting and storing metrics
• Logging: Implement centralized logging with ELK stack or Loki
• Tracing: Use Jaeger or Zipkin for distributed tracing
• Alerting: Set up alerts for critical metrics and SLOs

5. CI/CD Integration

Automate your deployments with GitOps practices. Tools like ArgoCD or Flux enable declarative, version-controlled deployments.

Use Helm or Kustomize

Manage your Kubernetes manifests with Helm charts or Kustomize for better maintainability and environment-specific configurations.

Conclusion

Running Kubernetes in production requires attention to many details, but following these best practices will help you build a reliable, secure, and efficient platform. Start with the basics and gradually implement more advanced practices as your team gains experience.

Need help with your Kubernetes deployment? Contact our DevOps team for expert guidance.