Kubernetes Best Practices for Production: A Complete Guide

Introduction

Running Kubernetes in production requires careful planning and adherence to best practices. This guide covers everything you need to know to operate Kubernetes clusters safely and efficiently.

Security Best Practices

Pod Security Standards

Implement strict pod security policies:

apiVersion: policy/v1
kind: PodSecurityPolicy
metadata:
  name: restricted
spec:
  privileged: false
  runAsUser:
    rule: MustRunAsNonRoot
  seLinux:
    rule: RunAsAny
  fsGroup:
    rule: RunAsAny
  volumes:
    - 'configMap'
    - 'emptyDir'
    - 'projected'
    - 'secret'

Network Policies

Control pod-to-pod communication:

apiVersion: networking.k8s.io/v1
kind: NetworkPolicy
metadata:
  name: deny-all
spec:
  podSelector: {}
  policyTypes:
    - Ingress
    - Egress

Secrets Management

• Use external secret managers (Vault, AWS Secrets Manager)
• Enable encryption at rest
• Rotate secrets regularly
• Never commit secrets to version control

Resource Management

Set Resource Limits

Always define resource requests and limits:

resources:
  requests:
    memory: "256Mi"
    cpu: "250m"
  limits:
    memory: "512Mi"
    cpu: "500m"

Implement Autoscaling

Configure horizontal pod autoscaling:

apiVersion: autoscaling/v2
kind: HorizontalPodAutoscaler
metadata:
  name: app-hpa
spec:
  scaleTargetRef:
    apiVersion: apps/v1
    kind: Deployment
    name: my-app
  minReplicas: 3
  maxReplicas: 10
  metrics:
    - type: Resource
      resource:
        name: cpu
        target:
          type: Utilization
          averageUtilization: 70

High Availability

Multi-Zone Deployment

Spread workloads across availability zones:

affinity:
  podAntiAffinity:
    preferredDuringSchedulingIgnoredDuringExecution:
      - weight: 100
        podAffinityTerm:
          topologyKey: topology.kubernetes.io/zone

Pod Disruption Budgets

Ensure availability during updates:

apiVersion: policy/v1
kind: PodDisruptionBudget
metadata:
  name: app-pdb
spec:
  minAvailable: 2
  selector:
    matchLabels:
      app: my-app

Monitoring and Observability

Essential Metrics

Monitor these key metrics:

• Pod health and restart counts
• Resource utilization
• Network throughput
• API server latency
• etcd performance

Logging Strategy

Implement centralized logging:

• Use Fluentd or Fluent Bit for log collection
• Store logs in Elasticsearch or Loki
• Set up alerting for error patterns

Conclusion

Production Kubernetes requires attention to security, resources, availability, and observability. By following these best practices, you'll build resilient, secure, and efficient clusters.

Avrut Solutions' DevOps team has extensive experience managing production Kubernetes environments. Contact us to learn how we can help optimize your infrastructure.