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Understanding Kubernetes Clusters, Pools and Droplets

Posted on May 6, 2020

I’ve set up managed PostgreSQL database alongside a managed Kubernetes that has 1 pool with one node. While setting up PostgreSQL I was asked to add resources that can connect to it, I was given option to add my pool or cluster, so I added cluster as I assumed it is a “higher level” group. When I go to my “Droplets” page inside my dashboard I can also see this pool that was created when I was setting up Kubernetes.

Right now I am confused to what these pools are, I understand concept of clusters and individual nodes inside them, but I don’t really understand concept of pools and why you can set up multiple pools within a cluster, also what is the difference between allowing a pool to connect to my database versus a cluster?



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Hi IljaAsimetriq,

A node pool is a group of nodes within a cluster that all have the same configuration. Node pools use a NodeConfig specification.

When you create a kubernetes cluster, the number and type of nodes that you specify becomes the default node pool. Then, you can add additional custom node pools of different sizes and types to your cluster. All nodes in any given node pool are identical to one another.

All the worker nodes within a node pool have identical resources, but each node pool can have a different worker configuration. This lets you have different services on different node pools, where each pool has the RAM, CPU, and attached storage resources the service requires.

You can create and modify node pools at any time. Worker nodes are automatically deleted and respawned when needed, and you can manually recycle worker nodes.

Read more more about kubernetes cluster, nodes and nodes-pools using the link below; https://www.digitalocean.com/docs/kubernetes/

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