Best Practices for Kubernetes Operations
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As part of the “Best Practices” series by Uplatz
Welcome to another powerful entry in the Uplatz Best Practices series — your go-to playbook for modern infrastructure operations.
Today’s spotlight: Kubernetes Operations — the backbone of container orchestration at scale.
🧱 What is Kubernetes?
Kubernetes (K8s) is an open-source system for automating deployment, scaling, and management of containerized applications.
It abstracts infrastructure complexity and provides resilience, scalability, and workload portability across cloud or on-prem environments.
Popular platforms: EKS (AWS), GKE (Google Cloud), AKS (Azure), OpenShift, Rancher, K3s
✅ Best Practices for Kubernetes Operations
Kubernetes is powerful — but complex. Without operational discipline, it can become fragile and costly. Here’s how to operate it like a pro:
1. Use Declarative Configuration and GitOps
📜 Define All Resources as Code (YAML/Helm/Kustomize)
🧬 Version-Control Everything – Deployments, Services, RBAC, ConfigMaps
🔁 Automate Deployments with GitOps Tools – ArgoCD, Flux
2. Implement Role-Based Access Control (RBAC)
🔐 Define Clear Roles and Scopes – Admin, Dev, Viewers
🚫 Follow Least Privilege Principle – Avoid cluster-wide roles by default
📋 Audit Access with Cloud Logs or OPA Gatekeeper
3. Monitor and Observe Everything
📈 Install Prometheus + Grafana for Metrics
📄 Use Fluentd, Loki, or ELK for Logging
🔍 Enable Distributed Tracing (Jaeger, OpenTelemetry)
📊 Dashboards for CPU, Memory, Latency, Pod Lifecycle
4. Secure the Cluster
🔐 Enable Pod Security Standards or PSPs – Avoid privileged containers
🔑 Rotate Secrets, Certificates, and Service Account Tokens
🧰 Use Network Policies to Limit Pod Communication
🛡 Scan Images and Configs (Trivy, kube-bench, Kubeaudit)
5. Use Namespaces for Isolation
🧱 Segment Teams, Environments, or Workloads
📦 Apply Resource Quotas and Limits per Namespace
🚧 Avoid Running Everything in ‘default’ Namespace
6. Manage Resource Requests and Limits
⚖️ Set CPU/Memory Requests and Limits for All Pods
📉 Prevent Resource Starvation and Overcommitment
📈 Monitor Usage Trends and Optimize Sizing
7. Automate Scaling and Resilience
🔁 Enable Horizontal Pod Autoscaler (HPA)
📈 Use Cluster Autoscaler for Node-Level Scaling
🔄 Set Readiness & Liveness Probes – Auto-restart unhealthy containers
🧱 Use Pod Disruption Budgets and Affinity Rules
8. Manage Deployments Safely
🚀 Use Rolling Updates, Not Recreates
🧪 Implement Canary or Blue-Green Strategies
🔄 Automate Rollbacks on Failure – Kubernetes handles it with kubectl rollout undo
9. Centralize Secrets and Configuration
🔐 Store Secrets Securely (Kubernetes Secrets, Vault, Sealed Secrets)
📁 Mount ConfigMaps and Environment Variables Appropriately
📜 Avoid Committing Secrets in YAML Files
10. Keep Kubernetes Up-to-Date
📦 Patch Often and Monitor CVEs
📅 Stay Within the Supported Version Window
🔄 Test Upgrades in Staging Before Applying to Prod
💡 Bonus Tip by Uplatz
Kubernetes makes everything possible — and nothing easy.
Master the basics, automate relentlessly, and invest in observability + security from day one.
🔁 Follow Uplatz to get more best practices in upcoming posts:
- GitOps with ArgoCD
- Kubernetes Cost Optimization
- Service Mesh with Istio
- Multi-Cluster and Hybrid Deployments
- Kubernetes for Machine Learning Workloads
…and 50+ more on cloud-native infrastructure, DevOps, and AI platforms.