Skip to content

Pod memory protection

Kubernetes 1.27: MemoryThrottlingFactor is awesome⚡

It’s a kubelet configuration that controls how much memory a pod can use before it is throttled.

The default value is 0.9, which means that a pod can use up to 90% of its memory limit before it is throttled.

Picture this:

If a pod has a memory limit of 100 MiB and we set the MemoryThrottlingFactor to 0.9,

it’s like saying, “Hey pod, you have 90 MiB of memory!” After crossing the limit, throttling is applied.

A throttled pod runs slowly but happily avoiding process termination because of Out of Memory (OOM) error. ☺️

You might ask:

We already have “resource limits” for this, why MemoryThrottlingFactor?

→ That’s the tricky part, sometimes a pod might get a sudden influx of data and start using more memory than expected (it’s limits).
→ That’s where MemoryThrottlingFactor comes in! It’s a soft limit, therefore a pod may cross 90% for short period of time.
→ It will eventually be throttled back down, that way, we avoid performance problems on the Pod.

That’s it for today. Hope this is useful. A Repost really helps ♻

PS: I’m 

Mutha Nagavamsi, follow me for simplified Kubernetes, tech and cybersecurity content.

https://medium.com/@muthanagavamsi/kubernetes-1-27-pod-memory-protection-d23618f5f996

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *