Which term describes automatically increasing or decreasing the number of pod replicas based on demand?

Which term describes automatically increasing or decreasing the number of pod replicas based on demand?

• A. Vertical scaling.
• B. Horizontal scaling.
• C. Auto-scaling.
• D. Static scaling.

Answer: (B)

Adjusting the number of pods running at the same time is horizontal scaling. This means adding or removing replicas to handle varying load, so more pods run during high demand and fewer during low demand. In Kubernetes, this automatic behavior is typically implemented with the Horizontal Pod Autoscaler, which monitors metrics like CPU usage and scales the replica count up or down accordingly. This approach targets the number of running pods, unlike vertical scaling, which changes resources inside a single pod, or static scaling, which doesn’t adjust automatically.

Adjusting the number of pods running at the same time is horizontal scaling. This means adding or removing replicas to handle varying load, so more pods run during high demand and fewer during low demand. In Kubernetes, this automatic behavior is typically implemented with the Horizontal Pod Autoscaler, which monitors metrics like CPU usage and scales the replica count up or down accordingly. This approach targets the number of running pods, unlike vertical scaling, which changes resources inside a single pod, or static scaling, which doesn’t adjust automatically.