Apply Headroom reduction

This topic describes how to apply Headroom reduction to a workload.

You apply the Headroom reduction solution to a workload using the Headroom reduction tab (“tab”) of the workload recommendation drawer (“drawer”).

You access the drawer from a recommendation in the Workloads tab.

Note: If the Insights agent is not installed in the cluster, recommendations are not displayed, so you cannot access the drawer. To install the Insights agent, see Install the Kompass Insights agent.

Headroom reduction tab

The following figure illustrates the Headroom reduction tab of the drawer:

• General: In this section, equal across all the tabs, you can see basic workload data, such as workload and cluster name, namespace, and cost. To see a graph of cost over time click View over time. The tab name shows whether the solution is currently active or inactive.
  In addition you can see the expected estimated savings after applying Headroom reduction with the auto-managed strategy.

• Solution: See the workload’s current metrics and compare those to the expected state after optimizing. You can see how Headroom reduction will change the minimum replica count to lead to expected optimized utilization and cost metrics.
  The recommended minimum replicas is based on the expected reduction in application start times together with historical data collected by the Insights agent.

Prerequisites:

• The Compute agent is installed in the cluster.
  For more information, see Install the Kompass Compute agent.
  
  If you attempt to apply Headroom reduction before the Compute agent is installed, you can install it directly from the drawer.

To apply Headroom reduction to a workload:

1. From the Kompass > Workloads tab, identify a workload with a Headroom reduction recommendation in the Recommendations column.
   To show only workloads with specific recommendations, click .
   

2. Click the icon of the recommendation to apply.
   The workload recommendation drawer is displayed, showing the Headroom reduction tab. For more information about the data shown in the tab, see Headroom reduction tab.

3. Click Apply Headroom reduction, then confirm.

The drawer closes and the Kompass > Workloads tab opens showing a message that the solution is being applied.

While the solution application is in progress, the icon of the applied solution is displayed in the workload’s Product status column in blue. For more information about what’s taking place during this time, see HiberScale technology.

After the solution is active (about an hour), the icon changes to green.

Reduce replicas manually

After the solution is active, be sure to manually adjust the minReplicas count in your Horizontal Pod Autoscaler (HPA) settings.

You can remove the Headroom reduction solution by clicking Deactivate Headroom reduction in the Headroom reduction tab of the drawer.

After removing Headroom reduction

If you remove Headroom reduction from a workload, be sure to manually adjust its minimum replicas.