AKS pods/node limit + nodepool scale up

Question

Hello,

Good day community!

In AKS, I noticed once the nodepool is created, we cant modify the pods/node limit or scale up the instance type.

When kubernetes upgrades is supported where AKS automatically does cordoning/draining the nodes, moving the workloads, bringing upgraded node and scheduling them, scaling up instance type should also be supported I feel.

I understand right now this feature is not there, but can we expect in the future?

Thanks for the time and support.

Answer 1

Hi @Alex,

Welcome to the Microsoft Q&A Platform! Thank you for asking your question here.

In Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS), once a node pool is created, you cannot directly modify the pod/node limit or scale up the instance type. This limitation is due to the underlying architecture of AKS, which uses virtual machine scale sets for node pools. While you can increase or decrease the number of nodes in an existing pool, and upgrade the Kubernetes version of the node pool, changing the VM size of an existing node pool is not allowed.

To change the instance type or the number of nodes, you must create a new node pool with the required specifications, migrate workloads from the old node pool to the new one.

AKS offers automatic upgrades, which involve cordoning and draining nodes, while migrating workloads to upgraded nodes. This approach helps minimize disruption to running applications.

Although the current feature set does not support direct scaling of instance types, there is increasing demand for this functionality. The Azure team values user feedback and takes it into consideration when planning future enhancements. They may prioritize adding this feature in future updates.

If you have any further queries, do let us know.