flex.planeflex.plane
Kubernetes

Scale a Cluster

Add or remove worker nodes.

Scaling a Kubernetes cluster in flex.plane means changing the size of its node pools. Add nodes to handle more load, remove nodes to save resources, or add a whole new node pool for workloads with different needs.

Scale a node pool

  1. Open the cluster and switch to the Node Pools tab.
  2. Open the pool's menu and choose Scale.
  3. Pick the new number of nodes and click Scale.

Each pool scales independently. Workload pools scale between 0 and 10 nodes, the system pool between 1 and 10.

The cluster detail page shows each node pool with its current size, status, and individual nodes.

Scale up

New nodes are provisioned as VMs, boot up, install Kubernetes components, and join the cluster. The process typically takes a few minutes per node.

Need more than 10 nodes, or nodes of a different size? Add another node pool.

Scale down

When you decrease the size of a pool, the platform gracefully removes the excess nodes:

  1. The oldest nodes in the pool are selected for removal.
  2. Selected nodes are cordoned (no new pods scheduled).
  3. Existing pods are drained (gracefully evicted).
  4. The underlying VMs are deleted.
Scaling a pool down to 0 nodes is allowed but means no pods can run in that pool. Make sure your workloads have somewhere else to go, or you will have pending pods.

Monitor scaling progress

While nodes are added or removed, the pool is in the Scaling state. Monitor progress on the Node Pools tab.

Scaling is complete when:

  • The pool's state returns to Ready.
  • The pool's readyReplicas matches its size.
  • unavailableReplicas is 0.
If scaling seems stuck, check the state.reason fields. Common issues include insufficient host capacity in the target zone, storage provisioning failures, or network configuration problems.

Manage Node Pools

Add, configure, and remove node pools.

Access a Cluster

Retrieve the kubeconfig and connect.