Kubernetes has matured significantly, and so have the patterns for running it effectively. As Hrishikesh Baidya, our CTO, who manages our infrastructure, puts it: the basics are now well-established—it's time to get them right.
92%
Use Managed K8s
40%
Cost Savings Possible
99.9%
Uptime Target
GitOps
Deployment Standard
Platform Considerations
Managed vs. Self-Managed
| Factor | Managed (EKS/GKE/AKS) | Self-Managed |
|---|---|---|
| Operational Burden | Low - automated upgrades | High - manual management |
| Cost at Scale | Higher per-cluster fee | Lower with expertise |
| Customization | Limited | Full control |
| Best For | Most teams (recommended) | Compliance/special needs |
💡 Our Recommendation: Use managed Kubernetes unless you have specific compliance needs or massive scale (500+ nodes). We deploy all client projects like Radiant Finance on managed platforms.
Multi-Cluster Strategy
Environment Isolation
Separate prod/staging/dev for security and stability
Regional Deployment
Low latency for global users, data residency compliance
Blast Radius Limitation
Issues in one cluster don't affect others
Team Separation
Different teams manage their own clusters
Resource Management
Right-Sizing
yaml
resources:
requests:
memory: "256Mi" # Guaranteed minimum
cpu: "100m" # 10% of a core
limits:
memory: "512Mi" # Hard cap
cpu: "500m" # Burst to 50%1
Start Conservative
Begin with modest requests/limits based on expected usage.
2
Monitor Actual Usage
Use Prometheus metrics to see real resource consumption over time.
3
Apply VPA Recommendations
Vertical Pod Autoscaler can suggest optimal values based on history.
4
Regular Reviews
Re-evaluate quarterly as workloads change.
Autoscaling
HPA
VPA
Cluster Autoscaler
KEDA
- KEDA for event-driven scaling:
- Scale based on queue depth (SQS, Kafka)
- Custom metrics from any source
- Scale to zero for cost savings
Security
⚠️ Security First: Kubernetes is secure by design, but only if you enable the security features. Default configurations are often permissive. See our Secure Software Development guide for more.
Pod Security Standards
yaml
apiVersion: v1
kind: Namespace
metadata:
labels:
pod-security.kubernetes.io/enforce: restricted
pod-security.kubernetes.io/audit: restricted
pod-security.kubernetes.io/warn: restrictedNetwork Policies
Key Practice: Default deny all traffic, then explicitly allow what's needed. This prevents lateral movement in case of a breach.
yaml
apiVersion: networking.k8s.io/v1
kind: NetworkPolicy
metadata:
name: default-deny-all
spec:
podSelector: {}
policyTypes:
- Ingress
- EgressSecrets Management
- Never store secrets in Git (even encrypted)
- Use External Secrets Operator + Vault/AWS Secrets Manager
- Rotate secrets automatically
- Audit secret access
- Use short-lived credentials where possible
Deployment Patterns
GitOps (Standard Approach)
"GitOps isn't just about deployments—it's about making your entire infrastructure auditable, reproducible, and recoverable. If it's not in Git, it doesn't exist."
Declarative Configs
All manifests stored in Git as the single source of truth
ArgoCD or Flux
Continuous reconciliation between Git and cluster state
Drift Detection
Automatic detection and correction of manual changes
Easy Rollbacks
Revert to any previous state with a git revert
Progressive Delivery
- Use Argo Rollouts for:
- Canary deployments: Roll out to 5% → 25% → 50% → 100%
- Blue-green deployments: Instant switch with instant rollback
- Automatic rollbacks: Based on analysis runs (error rates, latency)
Observability
The Three Pillars
Metrics
Prometheus + Grafana for dashboards and alerting
Logs
Structured JSON logging with central aggregation
Traces
OpenTelemetry for distributed tracing across services
SLO-Based Monitoring
- Define clear objectives:
- Availability: 99.9% uptime = 8.76 hours downtime/year
- Latency: p99 < 200ms
- Error rate: < 0.1% 5xx errors
- Error budgets: Alert when burning budget too fast
Cost Optimization
30-40%
Spot Instance Savings
20-30%
Right-Sizing Savings
15-25%
Reserved Capacity Savings
- Right-size workloads based on actual usage
- Use spot/preemptible instances for fault-tolerant workloads
- Implement autoscaling to match demand
- Clean up unused PVCs, load balancers, and images
- Use reserved capacity for baseline predictable workloads
- Monitor costs with Kubecost or OpenCost
Common Pitfalls to Avoid
⚠️ Top 5 Mistakes:
| Pitfall | Impact | Fix |
|---|---|---|
| No resource limits | Noisy neighbors, OOM kills | Always set requests AND limits |
| No PDB | All pods killed during upgrades | Set minAvailable or maxUnavailable |
| No network policies | Lateral movement possible | Default deny + explicit allow |
| No health checks | Traffic to unhealthy pods | Configure liveness + readiness |
| No resource quotas | Runaway costs, cluster exhaustion | Set namespace quotas |
✅ Our Approach: All Softechinfra projects follow these best practices. For projects like ChipMaker Hub and TalkDrill, we've achieved 99.95% uptime with these patterns.
Related Resources
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