Managing Kubernetes clusters at scale is no easy task! When it comes to efficiently autoscaling nodes, there is no one-size-fits-all solution for every application use case. The challenge lies in implementing centralized best practices, such as bin-packing and workload right-sizing while giving developers the flexibility to tailor the solution to their needs. This talk shares our platform team's journey from using a cluster autoscaler with static instance types to node scaling with dynamic instance sizes at scale. Along the way, we optimized costs and realized that reliability best practices, like Pod Disruption Budgets, Topology Spread Constraints, and resource rightsizing are more than just nice-to-have.

This session will provide a comprehensive overview of the node autoscaling technologies in the Azure Kubernetes Service. Philip will cover everything you need to know about the default node scaler in AKS, cluster autoscaler and the new sheriff in town: Karpenter. We will furthermore explore the differences between these technologies in a live demo and take a look at the pros and cons.