How to Test Autoscaling in Kubernetes

Kubernetes autoscaling adjusts infrastructure resources to meet demand, using vertical scaling to increase resources assigned to nodes or pods and horizontal scaling to add nodes or pod replicas. The walkthrough explains how to verify a Horizontal Pod Autoscaler (HPA) by preparing a namespace, confirming that the Kubernetes metrics server is running, deploying a sample PHP-Apache service with CPU requests and limits, and configuring it to scale from one to 15 replicas when CPU use exceeds 50 percent. Autoscaling can be tested directly with Kubernetes by running a BusyBox-based load generator and monitoring CPU targets and replica counts, although appropriate resource settings and metrics-server configuration are necessary for results. It also describes using Speedscale to capture generated or production traffic, create a snapshot, and replay that traffic against a deployment under configurable load conditions while reviewing request success rates, latency, and resource consumption. Speedscale’s replay approach can use realistic historical workloads, such as peak-event traffic, and can mock outbound dependencies to isolate a service during testing, though full-infrastructure testing remains optional.

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