EKS Cluster Autoscaler: 6 Best Practices For Effective Autoscaling

The EKS Cluster Autoscaler is a tool that automatically adds or removes nodes in a Kubernetes cluster based on pod resource requests. It helps manage cloud resources efficiently by eliminating overprovisioning and reducing waste. The Cluster Autoscaler works by checking the cluster for unschedulable pods, calculating whether it's possible to consolidate all currently deployed pods on fewer nodes, and making decisions around scaling and scheduling. To set up the EKS Cluster Autoscaler, users need to create an IAM policy, service account, and deploy the autoscaler itself. Some best practices for using the EKS Cluster Autoscaler include setting the least privileged access to the IAM role, configuring node groups well, using the correct Kubernetes version, checking node group instances for the same capacity, defining resource requests for each pod, and setting the PodDisruptionBudget wisely.