Scaling Pods in Kubernetes

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Scaling Pods in Kubernetes

For the last six months, the Acme Anvil Corporation has been migrating their bare metal infrastructure to Docker containers. A schism has developed between the members of your team on whether to use Docker Swarm or Kubernetes. To settle the dispute, your manager has decided to create a series of challenges. You have been tasked with setting up a Kubernetes cluster with 3 nodes: 1 master and 2 workers. First, you will create a deployment with 3 replicas using the `httpd` image. Next, you will create a service that will make the pod publicly accessible. Finally, you will scale the pod up to 5 replicas and then down to 2.

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Lab Info

Level

Intermediate

Last updated

Sep 16, 2025

Duration

1h 30m

Challenge

Complete the Kubernetes Install

Initialize the cluster:

kubeadm init --pod-network-cidr=10.244.0.0/16 --kubernetes-version=v1.11.3

mkdir -p $HOME/.kube
sudo cp -i /etc/kubernetes/admin.conf $HOME/.kube/config
sudo chown $(id -u):$(id -g) $HOME/.kube/config

Install Flannel on the master:

kubectl apply -f https://raw.githubusercontent.com/coreos/flannel/v0.9.1/Documentation/kube-flannel.yml

Challenge

Create the Deployment

vi deployment.yml

Add the following to deployment.yml:

apiVersion: apps/v1
kind: Deployment
metadata:
  name: httpd-deployment
  labels:
    app: httpd
spec:
  replicas: 3
  selector:
    matchLabels:
      app: httpd
  template:
    metadata:
      labels:
        app: httpd
    spec:
      containers:
      - name: httpd
        image: httpd:latest
        ports:
        - containerPort: 80

Spin up the deployment:

kubectl create -f deployment.yml

Challenge

Create the Service

vi service.yml

Add the following to service.yml:

kind: Service
apiVersion: v1
metadata:
  name: service-deployment
spec:
  selector:
    app: httpd
  ports:
  - protocol: TCP
    port: 80
    targetPort: 80
  type: NodePort

Create the service:

kubectl create -f service.yml

Challenge

Scale the Deployment Up to 5 Replicas
```
vi deployment.yml
```
Change the number of replicas to 5:
```
spec:
  replicas: 5
```
Apply the changes:
```
kubectl apply -f deployment.yml
```
Challenge

Scale the Deployment Down to 2 Replicas
```
vi deployment.yml
```
Change the number of replicas to 2:
```
spec:
  replicas: 2
```
Apply the changes:
```
kubectl apply -f deployment.yml
```

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