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Comparing Virtual Nodes with Managed Nodes

Find out about the differences between the virtual nodes and managed nodes you can create using Kubernetes Engine (OKE).

When creating a node pool with Kubernetes Engine, you specify the type of worker nodes to create in the node pool as one or other of the following:

You can only create virtual nodes in enhanced clusters. You can create managed nodes in both basic clusters and enhanced clusters.

All references to 'nodes' and 'worker nodes' in the Kubernetes Engine documentation refer to both virtual nodes and managed nodes, unless explicitly stated otherwise.

Virtual Nodes and Virtual Node Pools

Virtual nodes run in the Kubernetes Engine tenancy. You create virtual nodes by creating a virtual node pool. Virtual nodes and virtual node pools are fully managed by Oracle.

Virtual nodes provide a 'serverless' Kubernetes experience, enabling you to run containerized applications at scale without the operational overhead of upgrading the data plane infrastructure and managing the capacity of clusters.

You can only create virtual nodes and node pools in enhanced clusters.

Notable features supported differently by virtual nodes

Some features are supported differently when using virtual nodes rather than managed nodes:

  • Resource Allocation: Resource allocation is at the pod level, rather than at the worker node level. Consequently, you specify CPU and memory resource requirements (as requests and limits) in the pod specification, rather than for the worker nodes in a node pool. See Resources Allocated to Pods Provisioned by Virtual Nodes.

  • Load Balancing: Load balancing is between pods, rather than between worker nodes (as is the case with managed nodes). In clusters with virtual nodes, load balancer security list management is never enabled and you always have to manually configure security rules. Load balancers distribute traffic among pods' IP addresses and an assigned node port. When connecting to pods running on virtual nodes, use the syntax <pod-ip>:<nodeport>, rather than <node-ip>:<nodeport>. If you use different subnets for pods and nodes, configure node port ingress on the pod subnet.
  • Pod Networking: Only VCN-Native Pod Networking is supported (the flannel CNI plugin is not supported). Moreover, support is slightly different when using virtual nodes:
    • Only one VNIC is attached to each virtual node.
    • IP addresses are not pre-allocated before pods are created.
    • The VCN-Native Pod Networking CNI plugin is not shown as running in the kube-system namespace.
    • Since only VCN-Native Pod Networking is supported, the pod subnet route table must have route rules defined for a NAT gateway (not an internet gateway) and a service gateway.
  • Autoscaling: Virtual nodes automatically scale to support 500 pods. Because Oracle manages the underlying resources for virtual nodes, it is easier to work with the Kubernetes Horizontal Pod Autoscaler. It's not necessary to use the Kubernetes Cluster Autoscaler (which is not yet supported with virtual nodes in any case). The Kubernetes Vertical Pod Autoscaler is not supported with virtual nodes.

Notable Kubernetes features and capabilities not supported when using virtual nodes

Some Kubernetes features and capabilities are not supported, or not yet available, when using virtual nodes rather than managed nodes.

Kubernetes features not supported Additional information
Flannel and other third party CNI plugins are not supported. Virtual nodes only support the OCI VCN-Native Pod Networking CNI plugin.
Kubernetes daemonsets are not supported.

For example, the following is not supported:

apiVersion: apps/v1
kind: DaemonSet
Persistent volume claims (PVCs) are not supported. No additional information.
Network providers that support NetworkPolicy resources alongside the CNI plugin used in the cluster (such as Calico and Cilium) are not supported. No additional information.
Network policies (the Kubernetes NetworkPolicy resource) are not supported. No additional information.
Service mesh products are not supported. Products such as Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Service Mesh and Istio Service Mesh are not supported.

Liveness and readiness probes of type HTTP are supported.

HTTPS and exec probes are supported.

Startup probes are supported.

gRPC probes are not supported.

probe.terminationGracePeriodSeconds is not supported.

 For example, the following are supported:
livenessProbe:
  httpGet:
    path: /healthz
    port: 8080
  initialDelaySeconds: 3
  periodSeconds: 3
livenessProbe:
  exec:
    command:
    - cat
    - /tmp/healthy
livenessProbe:
  httpGet:
    path: /healthz
    port: 8080
    scheme: "HTTPS"
startupProbe:
  httpGet:
    path: /healthz
    port:8080
However, the following is not supported:
livenessProbe:
  grpc:
     port: 8080
  initialDelaySeconds: 5
  periodSeconds: 5

The kubectl logs command is supported.

The kubectl logs -p command is supported.

The kubectl logs -f command is not supported.

 For example, the following are supported:
kubectl logs workload1-589578899f-lwzm9
kubectl logs workload1-589578899f-lwzm9 -p
However, the following is not supported:
kubectl logs workload1-589578899f-lwzm9 -f
Ephemeral containers are not supported. No additional information.
Init-containers are not supported. No additional information.

The following Volume Types are supported:

  • emptyDir
  • ConfigMap
  • Secret

  • ProjectedVolume of the following types:

    • ServiceAccount
    • ConfigMap
    • Secret

The following Volume Types are not supported:

  • hostPath
  • persistentVolumeClaim
  • local
  • nfs
  • iscsi
  • cephfs

For example, the following is not supported:

volumes:
- name: test-volume
  hostPath:
    path: /data
Maximum of 1 volume of type emptyDir can currently be defined in the pod spec. No additional information.

The following Pod fields are not supported:

  • hostIPC
  • hostNetwork
  • hostPid
  • hostName
  • podOS
  • Overhead
  • setHostNameAsFqdn
  • shareProcessNamespace
 For example, the following is not supported:
spec:
  hostIPC: true
  hostNetwork: true
  hostPID: false
  setHostnameAsFQDN : true
  shareProcessNamespace : true

The following Pod security contexts are supported:

  • runAsNonRoot
  • runAsUser
  • runAsGroup

The following Pod security contexts are not supported:

  • fsGroup
  • fsGroupChangePolicy
  • supplementalGroups
  • seLinuxOptions
  • sysctls
  • seccompProfile
 For example, the following is not supported:
spec:
  securityContext:
    seLinuxOptions:
      type: dummy_container.proces

The following Container security contexts are supported:

  • readOnlyRootFilesystem
  • allowPrivilegeEscalation:false
  • capabilities

The following Container security contexts are not supported:

  • allowPrivilegeEscalation:true
  • privileged
  • procMount
 For example, the following is supported:
containers:
  - name: openssh-1
    securityContext:
      capabilities:
        add:
        - CAP_NET_ADMIN
However, the following is not supported:
containers:
  - name: openssh-1
    securityContext:
      procMount: Unmasked

Container.Port

  • Host IP
  • Host Port
 For example, the following is not supported:
ports:
  - name: test
    containerPort: 81
    hostPort: 80

Container

  • TerminationMessagePolicy
  • TerminationMessagePath
  • VolumeDevices
  • VolumeMount.MountPropagation
  • VolumeMount.Subpath Expression
 Note that Kubernetes adds TerminationMessagePolicy and TerminationMessagePath by default.
Container port range (1, 65535) cannot conflict with NodePort range (30000-32767). For example, the following is not supported:
containers:
  - name: my-nginx
    image: nginx
    ports:
    - containerPort: 30002
Pod.Volumes.EmptyDirVolumeSource:SizeLimit For example, the following is not supported:
emptyDir:
  sizeLimit: 500Mi
Pod.Volumes.EmptyDirVolumeSource:Medium - can only be "" or "Memory" For example, the following is not supported:
emptyDir:
  medium: "Memory1"

Pod:Volumes - Mode must be specified as 0644 for the following:

  • ConfigMapVolumeSource:KeyToPath:Mode
  • SecretVolumeSource:KeyToPath:Mode
  • ProjectedVolumeSource:SecretProjection:KeyToPath:Mode
  • ProjectedVolumeSource:ConfigMapProjection:KeyToPath:Mode
 For example, the following is not supported:
- name: myconfigmap
  configMap:
    name: kube-root-ca.crt
    items:
    - key: ca.crt
      path: abc
      mode: 0400

Pod:Volumes - if DefaultMode specified for the following, DefaultMode must be 0644:

  • ConfigMapVolumeSource:DefaultMode
  • ProjectedVolumeSource:DefaultMode
  • SecretVolumeSource:DefaultMode
 For example, the following is not supported:
- name: workload-volume
    configMap:
      name: myconfigmap
      defaultMode: 0400
Resources.Requests cannot be different from Resources.Limits For example, the following is not supported:
resources:
  requests:
    cpu: 50m
    memory: 200Mi
  limits:
    cpu: 100m
    memory: 400Mi
Volumes:DownwardAPI:ResourceFieldRef For example, the following is not supported:
resourceFieldRef:
  containerName: openssh
  resource: limits.cpu
TerminationGracePeriodSeconds For example, the following is not supported:
terminationGracePeriodSeconds: 30
DeletionGracePeriodSeconds For example, the following is not supported:
metadata:
  DeletionGracePeriodSeconds: 30
Exec Container For example, the following is not supported:
kubectl exec workload1-589578899f-lwzm9 -- sh
Kubectl port-forward command Use kubectl proxy instead (see Troubleshooting Pod and Service Issues on Virtual Nodes Using kubectl proxy Rather Than kubectl port-forward).
UpdatePod requests with mutations to pod.spec.containers[].image No additional information.
Propagation to pods of updates to mounted configmaps and secrets No additional information.

The following container-level metrics in the virtual kubelet metrics endpoint are supported:

  • container_cpu_usage_seconds_total
  • container_memory_working_set_bytes
Other container-level metrics in the virtual kubelet metrics endpoint are not supported.		 No additional information.
Container:ResourceRequirements Subcore No additional information.
Container stdin/stdinOnce, tty No additional information.
Preserve client IP addresses when externalTrafficPolicy: Local No additional information.
ImagePullSecret types other than config and configJson No additional information.
ProjectedVolumeSource:ServiceAccountTokenProjection:ExpirationSeconds No additional information.
The kubectl attach command to interact with a process that is already running inside an existing container. No additional information.

Notable Kubernetes Engine (OKE) features and capabilities not supported when using virtual nodes

Some Kubernetes Engine features and capabilities are not available, or not yet available, when using virtual nodes rather than managed nodes.

Kubernetes Engine features not supported Additional information
SSH connections to worker nodes (including via a bastion) Not available.
Use of custom cloud-init scripts Not available.
Node Doctor script Not available.
Support for Kubernetes versions prior to version 1.25 Virtual nodes require the cluster to be running at least Kubernetes version 1.25.
Mixed clusters, containing both virtual nodes and managed nodes. Not yet available.
Autoscale the number of virtual nodes. Not yet available.
Capacity reservations to provision virtual nodes. Not yet available.
Pods with Intel and GPU shapes. Not yet available.
Credential rotation, as described in Rotating Cluster Credentials Not yet available.

Common deployments not supported, and supported differently, when using virtual nodes

The following common deployments are not supported when using virtual nodes rather than managed nodes, or are supported differently:

Deployment Notes
kube-proxy in the kube-system namespace, and the kube-proxy cluster add-on kube-proxy runs in pods scheduled on virtual nodes, but is not deployed in the kube-system namespace.
Kubernetes Dashboard Not supported when using virtual nodes.
Nginx ingress controller Deploy differently when using virtual nodes (see Setting Up the Example Ingress Controller).
Kubernetes Cluster Autoscaler Not supported when using virtual nodes.
Vertical Pod Autoscaler Not supported when using virtual nodes.
Kubernetes Metrics Server Deploy differently when using virtual nodes (see Deploying the Kubernetes Metrics Server on a Cluster).

Managed Nodes and Managed Node Pools

Managed nodes run on compute instances (either bare metal or virtual machine) in your tenancy. You create managed nodes by creating a managed node pool. Managed nodes and managed node pools are managed by you.

As you are responsible for managing managed nodes, you have the flexibility to configure them to meet your specific requirements. You are responsible for upgrading Kubernetes on managed nodes, and for managing cluster capacity.

When using managed nodes, you pay for the compute instances that execute applications.

You can create managed nodes and node pools in both basic clusters and enhanced clusters.

For more information, see Comparing Managed Nodes with Virtual Nodes

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