What is Kubernetes Vertical Pod Autoscaler (VPA)?

Question

Accepted Answer

**VPA** — automatically adjusts Pod resource requests based on usage.

```yaml
apiVersion: autoscaling.k8s.io/v1
kind: VerticalPodAutoscaler
metadata:
  name: myapp-vpa
spec:
  targetRef:
    apiVersion: apps/v1
    kind: Deployment
    name: myapp
  updatePolicy:
    updateMode: "Auto"
  resourcePolicy:
    containerPolicies:
    - containerName: app
      minAllowed:
        cpu: "100m"
        memory: "128Mi"
      maxAllowed:
        cpu: "2"
        memory: "4Gi"
```

**Modes:**
- **Off** — recommendations only.
- **Initial** — applies on Pod creation.
- **Recreate** — evicts and recreates Pods.
- **Auto** — Recreate or Initial based on cluster.

**vs HPA:**
- HPA scales replica count.
- VPA scales resource requests per Pod.

DevOps: What is Kubernetes Vertical Pod Autoscaler (VPA)?