Testing Kubernetes at scale
Clusters with thousands of nodes are expensive. Even a project such as Kubernetes that enjoys the support of Google and other industry giants still needs to come up with reasonable ways to test without breaking the bank.
The Kubernetes team runs a full-fledged test on a real cluster at least once per release to collect real-world performance and scalability data. However, there is also a need for a lightweight and cheaper way to experiment with potential improvements and detect regressions. Enter Kubemark.
Introducing the Kubemark tool
Kubemark is a Kubernetes cluster that runs mock nodes called hollow nodes used for running lightweight benchmarks against large-scale (hollow) clusters. Some of the Kubernetes components that are available on a real node such as the kubelet are replaced with a hollow kubelet. The hollow kubelet fakes a lot of the functionality of a real kubelet. A hollow kubelet doesn’t actually start any containers, and...
