Kubernetes memory scalability
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Description
Verify that your Kubernetes service scales as expected when memory is limited. Gremlin increases memory utilization in three stages—50%, 75%, and 90%—to validate Kubernetes memory management.
What this Scenario does
This Scenario progressively consumes memory within your Kubernetes pods in three stages: 50%, 75%, and 90%. This simulates memory pressure from traffic spikes, memory leaks, or under-provisioned pod resource limits.
Why run this Scenario?
- Identify memory leaks or poor garbage collection within pod workloads before they trigger OOMKiller.
- Test how Kubernetes memory resource limits and requests interact with the OOMKiller under pressure.
- Verify that Kubernetes pod autoscaling (HPA or VPA) responds to memory pressure as configured.
- Optimize pod memory resource limits to balance cost, performance, and cluster stability.
Expected outcome
If memory usage spikes to 90% within a Kubernetes pod, the application continues to function without performance degradation for at least 5 minutes.
