Why Best Practices Matter
Following Kubernetes best practices ensures your deployments are secure, scalable, maintainable, and cost-effective. This comprehensive guide covers industry-standard practices that will help you build production-ready applications.
Naming Conventions & Labeling
Standardize naming across your cluster for better organization
Resource Management & Limits
Properly define CPU and memory requests and limits
Pod Security & Health Checks
Ensure containers are secure and properly monitored
Deployment Patterns & Strategies
Best practices for deploying applications
Data & State Management
Handle persistent data correctly
Storage Best Practices
- Use PersistentVolumes for data that must survive pod restarts
- Choose appropriate StorageClass (SSD for databases, HDD for archives)
- Implement automated backups and disaster recovery
- Use StatefulSets for stateful applications (databases, caches)
- Configure retention policies and cleanup schedules
- Monitor storage usage and capacity planning
Anti-Patterns to Avoid
Common mistakes that lead to problems
Using Latest Image Tag
❌ Bad: image: myapp:latest
✅ Good: image: myapp:v1.2.3-sha256
Why: Latest tag is mutable and can change unexpectedly, breaking deployments.
Running as Root
❌ Bad: No security context defined (runs as root by default)
✅ Good: Set runAsNonRoot: true and runAsUser: 1000
Why: Root access increases security risk if container is compromised.
No Resource Limits
❌ Bad: No requests or limits specified
✅ Good: Always define CPU and memory requests and limits
Why: Without limits, a single pod can consume all cluster resources.
Secrets in ConfigMaps
❌ Bad: Storing passwords in ConfigMaps
✅ Good: Use Secrets and enable encryption at rest
Why: ConfigMaps are not encrypted and can leak sensitive data.
Quick Reference Checklist
- Use lowercase names with hyphens
- Always set resource requests and limits
- Implement liveness and readiness probes
- Use specific image tags (not latest)
- Run as non-root user
- Use Secrets for sensitive data
- Label all resources consistently
- Use namespaces for isolation
- Enable pod security policies
- Implement network policies
- Use RBAC for access control
- Monitor and log all activity