How to Accelerate Pod Start-up on Nodes in Large Clusters

Explore strategies for accelerating pod startup in large Kubernetes clusters through this comprehensive conference talk. Delve into the pod startup process and learn various techniques to optimize performance. Examine API-level improvements, including controller-manager creation time, PV & PVC binding, and webhooks. Discover scheduling enhancements like GPU topology awareness and node load awareness. Investigate node-level optimizations from the kubelet perspective, covering image pulling, sidecars, API QPS & Burst, event-driven PLEG, throttling, disk and volume drivers, static CPU policy, and container runtime. Explore GPU management considerations, including topology beyond NUMA, sharing, and monitoring. Address data load challenges through preloading and storage strategies. Gain insights into observability techniques to identify and troubleshoot slow pod startups. Equip yourself with practical knowledge to enhance cluster efficiency and reduce pod startup times in large-scale Kubernetes environments.