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Observability for etcd Clusters
  1. Prerequisites
  2. Check Current Resources
  3. Apply Vertical Scaling
  4. Verify Scaling
  5. Cleanup

Vertical Scaling for etcd Clusters with KubeBlocks

This guide explains how to vertically scale an etcd cluster managed by KubeBlocks by adjusting CPU and memory resources.

Prerequisites

    Before proceeding, verify your environment meets these requirements:

    • A functional Kubernetes cluster (v1.21+ recommended)
    • kubectl v1.21+ installed and configured with cluster access
    • Helm installed (installation guide)
    • KubeBlocks installed (installation guide)
    • etcd Add-on installed and an etcd cluster running (see Quickstart)

    Check Current Resources

    kubectl get cluster etcd-cluster -n demo \
  -o jsonpath='{.spec.componentSpecs[0].resources}' | jq .
    Example Output
    {
  "limits": { "cpu": "0.5", "memory": "0.5Gi" },
  "requests": { "cpu": "0.5", "memory": "0.5Gi" }
}

    Apply Vertical Scaling

    Scale the etcd cluster from 0.5 CPU / 0.5Gi memory to 1 CPU / 1Gi memory:

    apiVersion: operations.kubeblocks.io/v1alpha1
kind: OpsRequest
metadata:
  name: etcd-verticalscaling
  namespace: demo
spec:
  clusterName: etcd-cluster
  type: VerticalScaling
  verticalScaling:
  - componentName: etcd
    requests:
      cpu: '1'
      memory: 1Gi
    limits:
      cpu: '1'
      memory: 1Gi

    Apply it:

    kubectl apply -f https://raw.githubusercontent.com/apecloud/kubeblocks-addons/refs/heads/main/examples/etcd/verticalscale.yaml

    Monitor the progress:

    kubectl get ops etcd-verticalscaling -n demo -w
    Example Output
    NAME                      TYPE              CLUSTER        STATUS    PROGRESS   AGE
etcd-verticalscaling      VerticalScaling   etcd-cluster   Running   0/3        10s
etcd-verticalscaling      VerticalScaling   etcd-cluster   Running   1/3        28s
etcd-verticalscaling      VerticalScaling   etcd-cluster   Running   2/3        50s
etcd-verticalscaling      VerticalScaling   etcd-cluster   Running   3/3        66s
etcd-verticalscaling      VerticalScaling   etcd-cluster   Succeed   3/3        66s

    Update the resources directly in the Cluster spec:

    kubectl patch cluster etcd-cluster -n demo --type=json \
  -p='[
    {"op": "replace", "path": "/spec/componentSpecs/0/resources/requests/cpu", "value": "1"},
    {"op": "replace", "path": "/spec/componentSpecs/0/resources/requests/memory", "value": "1Gi"},
    {"op": "replace", "path": "/spec/componentSpecs/0/resources/limits/cpu", "value": "1"},
    {"op": "replace", "path": "/spec/componentSpecs/0/resources/limits/memory", "value": "1Gi"}
  ]'

    Monitor the cluster status:

    kubectl get cluster etcd-cluster -n demo -w

    Verify Scaling

    kubectl get pods -n demo -l app.kubernetes.io/instance=etcd-cluster
    Example Output
    NAME                  READY   STATUS    RESTARTS   AGE   ROLE
etcd-cluster-etcd-0   2/2     Running   0          90s   follower
etcd-cluster-etcd-1   2/2     Running   0          65s   follower
etcd-cluster-etcd-2   2/2     Running   0          35s   leader

    Confirm the new resource allocation:

    kubectl get cluster etcd-cluster -n demo \
  -o jsonpath='{.spec.componentSpecs[0].resources}' | jq .
    Example Output
    {
  "limits": { "cpu": "1", "memory": "1Gi" },
  "requests": { "cpu": "1", "memory": "1Gi" }
}

    Cleanup

    kubectl delete cluster etcd-cluster -n demo
kubectl delete ns demo

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