Kubernetes Deployment Patterns

Expert guidance for production-grade Kubernetes deployments covering deployment strategies, workload types, configuration management, resource optimization, and autoscaling patterns for cloud-native applications.

When to Use This Skill Implementing deployment strategies (rolling updates, blue-green, canary releases) Choosing appropriate workload types (Deployment, StatefulSet, DaemonSet, Job) Designing rollout strategies for zero-downtime deployments Implementing configuration management with ConfigMaps and Secrets Setting up resource management and autoscaling (HPA, VPA) Configuring health checks and probe strategies Designing highly available applications on Kubernetes Implementing batch processing and scheduled jobs Core Concepts Deployment Strategies

Rolling Update: Gradually replace old pods with new ones (zero-downtime, default) Recreate: Terminate all old pods before creating new ones (brief downtime) Blue-Green: Run two environments, switch traffic instantly (2x resources) Canary: Gradually shift traffic to new version while monitoring (risk mitigation)

Workload Types

Deployment: Stateless applications (web servers, APIs, microservices) StatefulSet: Stateful applications (databases, message queues) DaemonSet: Node-level services (log collectors, monitoring agents) Job: One-time tasks (batch processing, migrations) CronJob: Scheduled tasks (backups, periodic reports)

Resource Management

Requests: Guaranteed resources for scheduling Limits: Maximum resources enforced by kubelet HPA: Horizontal Pod Autoscaler (scale replicas based on metrics) VPA: Vertical Pod Autoscaler (adjust resource requests/limits)

Quick Reference Task Load reference Deployment strategies (rolling, blue-green, canary) skills/kubernetes-deployment-patterns/references/deployment-strategies.md Workload types (Deployment, StatefulSet, DaemonSet, Job) skills/kubernetes-deployment-patterns/references/workload-types.md Configuration management (ConfigMaps, Secrets) skills/kubernetes-deployment-patterns/references/configuration-management.md Resource management and autoscaling (HPA, VPA) skills/kubernetes-deployment-patterns/references/resource-management.md Production best practices and security skills/kubernetes-deployment-patterns/references/production-best-practices.md Workflow 1. Choose Deployment Strategy

Rolling update for standard deployments

strategy: type: RollingUpdate rollingUpdate: maxSurge: 1 maxUnavailable: 0

Recreate for incompatible versions

strategy: type: Recreate

1. Select Workload Type Stateless? → Use Deployment Stateful with persistent identity? → Use StatefulSet One pod per node? → Use DaemonSet Run to completion? → Use Job Run on schedule? → Use CronJob

2. Configure Resources resources: requests: memory: "256Mi" cpu: "250m" limits: memory: "512Mi" cpu: "1000m"

3. Add Configuration

ConfigMap for non-sensitive config

envFrom: - configMapRef: name: app-config

Secret for sensitive data

env: - name: DB_PASSWORD valueFrom: secretKeyRef: name: db-credentials key: password

1. Implement Health Checks livenessProbe: httpGet: path: /healthz port: 8080 initialDelaySeconds: 30 periodSeconds: 10

readinessProbe: httpGet: path: /ready port: 8080 initialDelaySeconds: 5 periodSeconds: 5

1. Enable Autoscaling apiVersion: autoscaling/v2 kind: HorizontalPodAutoscaler spec: scaleTargetRef: kind: Deployment name: app minReplicas: 2 maxReplicas: 10 metrics:
2. type: Resource resource: name: cpu target: type: Utilization averageUtilization: 70

Common Mistakes Using latest tag: Always use specific version tags for reproducibility No resource limits: Can cause resource starvation and cluster instability Missing health checks: Kubernetes can't manage pod health without probes Single replica in production: No high availability or resilience Secrets in ConfigMaps: Use Secrets for sensitive data, not ConfigMaps No update strategy: Leads to unpredictable deployment behavior Running as root: Security vulnerability, violates least privilege No monitoring: Can't detect or debug issues in production Resources Official Docs: https://kubernetes.io/docs/concepts/workloads/ Deployment Strategies: https://kubernetes.io/docs/concepts/workloads/controllers/deployment/ StatefulSets: https://kubernetes.io/docs/concepts/workloads/controllers/statefulset/ Autoscaling: https://kubernetes.io/docs/tasks/run-application/horizontal-pod-autoscale/ Configuration: https://kubernetes.io/docs/concepts/configuration/ Best Practices: https://kubernetes.io/docs/concepts/configuration/overview/