Scale Workload Cluster ¶

This topic explains how to scale a workload cluster in three ways:

• Autoscale: Enable Cluster Autoscaler, which scales the number of worker nodes.

• Scale horizontally: Run the tanzu cluster scale command with the --controlplane-machine-count and --worker-machine-count options; this scales the number of control plane and worker nodes.

• Scale vertically: Change the cluster’s machine template to increase the size of the control plane and worker nodes.

Scale Workload Clusters with Cluster Autoscaler ¶

Cluster Autoscaler is a Kubernetes program that automatically scales Kubernetes clusters depending on the demands on the workload clusters. For more information about Cluster Autoscaler, see the following documentation in GitHub:

• Cluster Autoscaler introduction and documentation.
• Frequently Asked Questions about Cluster Autoscaler and how it relates to alternative autoscaling approaches.
• Cluster Autoscaler on Cluster API for information about cluster-api provider implementation for cluster autoscaler.

By default, Cluster Autoscaler is disabled. To enable Cluster Autoscaler in a workload cluster, set the ENABLE_AUTOSCALER to true and set the AUTOSCALER_ options in the workload cluster configuration file or as environment variables before running tanzu cluster create --file. Sample workload cluster template files are available here: AWS, Azure, vSphere.

Each Cluster Autoscaler configuration variable in a workload cluster configuration file corresponds to a parameter in the Cluster Autoscaler tool.

The AUTOSCALER_*_SIZE settings limit the number of worker nodes in a cluster, while AUTOSCALER_MAX_NODES_TOTAL limits the count of all nodes, both worker and control plane.

Set AUTOSCALER_*_SIZE values depending on the number of worker nodes in the cluster:

• For clusters with a single worker node, such as dev clusters, set AUTOSCALER_MIN_SIZE_0 and AUTOSCALER_MAX_SIZE_0.
• For clusters with multiple worker nodes, such as prod clusters, set:
  • AUTOSCALER_MIN_SIZE_0 and AUTOSCALER_MAX_SIZE_0
  • AUTOSCALER_MIN_SIZE_1 and AUTOSCALER_MAX_SIZE_1
  • AUTOSCALER_MIN_SIZE_2 and AUTOSCALER_MAX_SIZE_2

Below is an example of Cluster Autoscaler settings in a cluster configuration file. You cannot modify these values after you deploy the cluster.

#! ---------------------------------------------------------------------
#! Autoscaler related configuration
#! ---------------------------------------------------------------------
ENABLE_AUTOSCALER: false
AUTOSCALER_MAX_NODES_TOTAL: "0"
AUTOSCALER_SCALE_DOWN_DELAY_AFTER_ADD: "10m"
AUTOSCALER_SCALE_DOWN_DELAY_AFTER_DELETE: "10s"
AUTOSCALER_SCALE_DOWN_DELAY_AFTER_FAILURE: "3m"
AUTOSCALER_SCALE_DOWN_UNNEEDED_TIME: "10m"
AUTOSCALER_MAX_NODE_PROVISION_TIME: "15m"
AUTOSCALER_MIN_SIZE_0:
AUTOSCALER_MAX_SIZE_0:
AUTOSCALER_MIN_SIZE_1:
AUTOSCALER_MAX_SIZE_1:
AUTOSCALER_MIN_SIZE_2:
AUTOSCALER_MAX_SIZE_2:

For each workload that you create with Cluster Autoscaler enabled, Tanzu creates a Cluster Autoscaler deployment in the management cluster. To disable Cluster Autoscaler, delete the Cluster Autoscaler deployment associated with your workload.

Scale a Workload Cluster Horizontally With the Tanzu CLI ¶

To horizontally scale a workload, use the tanzu cluster scale command. You change the number of control plane nodes by specifying the --controlplane-machine-count option. You change the number of worker nodes by specifying the --worker-machine-count option.

To scale a cluster that you originally deployed with 3 control plane nodes and 5 worker nodes to 5 and 10 nodes respectively, run the following command:

tanzu cluster scale cluster_name --controlplane-machine-count 5 --worker-machine-count 10

If you initially deployed a cluster with --controlplane-machine-count 1 and then you scale it up to 3 control plane nodes, Tanzu automatically enables stacked HA on the control plane.

If the cluster is running in a namespace other than the default namespace, you must specify the --namespace option to scale that cluster.

tanzu cluster scale <WORKLOAD-CLUSTER-NAME> --controlplane-machine-count 5 --worker-machine-count 10 --namespace=my-namespace

IMPORTANT: Do not change context or edit the .kube-tkg/config file while Tanzu operations are running.

Scale a Workload Cluster Vertically With kubectl ¶

To vertically scale a workload cluster, follow the Updating Infrastructure Machine Templates procedure in The Cluster API Book, which changes the cluster’s machine template.

The procedure downloads the cluster’s existing machine template, with a kubectl get command that you can construct as follows:

kubectl get MACHINE-TEMPLATE-TYPE MACHINE-TEMPLATE-NAME -o yaml

Where:
MACHINE-TEMPLATE-TYPE is:

VsphereMachineTemplate on vSphere
AWSMachineTemplate on Amazon EC2
AzureMachineTemplate on Azure

MACHINE-TEMPLATE-NAME is the name of the machine template for the cluster nodes that you are scaling, which follows the form:

CLUSTER-NAME-control-plane for control plane nodes
CLUSTER-NAME-worker for worker nodes

For example:

kubectl get VsphereMachineTemplate monitoring-cluster-worker -o yaml