The statement “beware of Kubernetes, it burns through your resources” refers to the fact that Kubernetes, although a powerful and flexible solution for orchestrating containerized applications, can consume a relatively large amount of system resources (such as CPU, memory, and storage).

This is due to several factors:

  1. Kubernetes has overhead: Kubernetes itself runs as a cluster of various components, such as the API server, scheduler, controller manager, and more. These components run on the control plane and need to be managed. This adds extra overhead to your system, meaning that the resources Kubernetes itself uses are added on top of the applications you are actually running.

  2. Complexity of cluster management: In larger Kubernetes clusters, the amount of computing power required can increase due to the management of multiple nodes, workloads, and the associated control mechanisms. This can lead to increased resource consumption, especially if the cluster is not well-configured.

  3. Scaling applications: Kubernetes is designed to automatically scale your applications based on load. However, depending on your configuration, Kubernetes might start additional pods or reserve resources, even if they are not actually being used, which can waste resources.

  4. Complex networks and services: Kubernetes uses complex networking layers for managing communication between pods and services. This can impact performance and consume additional network resources. The network connections between the various Kubernetes components can also contribute to higher resource costs in some cases.

  5. Use of on-demand services: Kubernetes makes use of cloud-based infrastructures for auto-scaling, meaning the cluster may sometimes request more resources than necessary. For example, if you don’t properly configure when certain resources should be scaled up, it could require unnecessary capacity.

In short, Kubernetes is extremely powerful and offers many benefits for large and complex applications, but it consumes significant amounts of resources, especially if it’s not properly tuned to your needs. It’s important to configure and optimize it well so that you don’t waste resources unnecessarily.