Best Practices for Kubernetes Operations

Posted on by uplatzblog

Best Practices for Kubernetes Operations

  • 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.