In this step you would scale your e-commerce application to prepare for the expected increase in traffic due to the marketing campaign. This will demonstrate Kubernetes' ability to dynamically manage application scalability.
First, let's check the current number of running pods:
kubectl get pods
You should see output similar to this:
NAME READY STATUS RESTARTS AGE
ecommerce-website-5f7b9d4f9d-abcd1 1/1 Running 0 2h
ecommerce-website-5f7b9d4f9d-efgh2 1/1 Running 0 2h
This shows that you currently have 2 replicas running, as specified in your original deployment.
To handle the tripled traffic, let's increase the number of replicas to 6. You can do this in two ways:
a. By editing the deployment YAML file:
Edit your website-deployment.yaml
file and change the replicas
field:
spec:
replicas: 6
Then apply the changes:
kubectl apply -f website-deployment.yaml
b. Or, use the kubectl scale
command:
kubectl scale deployment/ecommerce-website --replicas=6
Now, let's observe the deployment scaling up:
kubectl get pods -w
The -w
flag will watch for changes. You should see new pods being created:
NAME READY STATUS RESTARTS AGE
ecommerce-website-5f7b9d4f9d-abcd1 1/1 Running 0 2h
ecommerce-website-5f7b9d4f9d-efgh2 1/1 Running 0 2h
ecommerce-website-5f7b9d4f9d-ijkl3 0/1 ContainerCreating 0 2s
ecommerce-website-5f7b9d4f9d-mnop4 0/1 ContainerCreating 0 2s
ecommerce-website-5f7b9d4f9d-qrst5 0/1 ContainerCreating 0 2s
ecommerce-website-5f7b9d4f9d-uvwx6 0/1 ContainerCreating 0 2s
Wait until all pods are in the Running state.
- Verify the Scaling
To confirm that the scaling operation was successful, run:
kubectl get deployment ecommerce-website
You should see output similar to:
NAME READY UP-TO-DATE AVAILABLE AGE
ecommerce-website 6/6 6 6 2h
This indicates that all 6 replicas are now ready and available.
- Check the Service
Ensure that your LoadBalancer service is correctly routing traffic to all pods:
kubectl describe service ecommerce-website-service
Look for the "Endpoints" section, which should list the IP addresses of all 6 pods.
Your application has now scaled up to handle the increased load. Kubernetes has dynamically created new pods to match the desired state of 6 replicas. This demonstrates Kubernetes' ability to easily manage application scalability.
Additional Considerations:
-
Monitor Application Performance: Use Kubernetes' built-in monitoring tools or integrate with external monitoring solutions to keep an eye on your application's performance under increased load.
-
Autoscaling: For long-term management, consider setting up Horizontal Pod Autoscaler (HPA) to automatically adjust the number of replicas based on CPU utilization or custom metrics.
-
Database Scaling: Ensure that your database can handle the increased load. You might need to scale your database or implement caching mechanisms.
-
Load Testing: Before the actual marketing campaign, perform load testing to ensure your scaled application can handle the expected traffic increase.
-
Resource Limits: Make sure you have enough resources in your Kubernetes cluster to handle the increased number of pods. You may need to scale your cluster if you're approaching resource limits.
By following these steps, you've successfully scaled your e-commerce application to handle the expected increase in traffic from your marketing campaign. This showcases how Kubernetes can help manage application scalability dynamically, allowing you to respond quickly to changing demand.