Feature blog for StatefulSet Autodelete beta graduation
Matthew Cary
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layout: blog
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title: 'Kubernetes 1.27: StatefulSet PVC Auto-Deletion (beta)'
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date: 2023-05-04
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slug: kubernetes-1-27-statefulset-pvc-auto-deletion-beta
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---
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**Author:** Matthew Cary (Google)
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Kubernetes v1.27 graduated to beta a new policy mechanism for
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[`StatefulSets`](/docs/concepts/workloads/controllers/statefulset/) that controls the lifetime of
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their [`PersistentVolumeClaims`](/docs/concepts/storage/persistent-volumes/) (PVCs). The new PVC
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retention policy lets users specify if the PVCs generated from the `StatefulSet` spec template should
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be automatically deleted or retrained when the `StatefulSet` is deleted or replicas in the `StatefulSet`
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are scaled down.
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## What problem does this solve?
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A `StatefulSet` spec can include `Pod` and PVC templates. When a replica is first created, the
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Kubernetes control plane creates a PVC for that replica if one does not already exist. The behavior
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before the PVC retention policy was that the control plane never cleaned up the PVCs created for
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`StatefulSets` - this was left up to the cluster administrator, or to some add-on automation that
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you’d have to find, check suitability, and deploy. The common pattern for managing PVCs, either
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manually or through tools such as Helm, is that the PVCs are tracked by the tool that manages them,
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with explicit lifecycle. Workflows that use `StatefulSets` must determine on their own what PVCs are
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created by a `StatefulSet` and what their lifecycle should be.
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Before this new feature, when a StatefulSet-managed replica disappears, either because the
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`StatefulSet` is reducing its replica count, or because its `StatefulSet` is deleted, the PVC and its
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backing volume remains and must be manually deleted. While this behavior is appropriate when the
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data is critical, in many cases the persistent data in these PVCs is either temporary, or can be
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reconstructed from another source. In those cases, PVCs and their backing volumes remaining after
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their `StatefulSet` or replicas have been deleted are not necessary, incur cost, and require manual
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cleanup.
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## The new `StatefulSet` PVC retention policy
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The new `StatefulSet` PVC retention policy is used to control if and when PVCs created from a
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`StatefulSet`’s `volumeClaimTemplate` are deleted. There are two contexts when this may occur.
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The first context is when the `StatefulSet` resource is deleted (which implies that all replicas are
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also deleted). This is controlled by the `whenDeleted` policy. The second context, controlled by
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`whenScaled` is when the `StatefulSet` is scaled down, which removes some but not all of the replicas
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in a `StatefulSet`. In both cases the policy can either be `Retain`, where the corresponding PVCs are
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not touched, or `Delete`, which means that PVCs are deleted. The deletion is done with a normal
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[object deletion](/docs/concepts/architecture/garbage-collection/), so that, for example, all
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retention policies for the underlying PV are respected.
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This policy forms a matrix with four cases. I’ll walk through and give an example for each one.
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* **`whenDeleted` and `whenScaled` are both `Retain`.**
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This matches the existing behavior for `StatefulSets`, where no PVCs are deleted. This is also
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the default retention policy. It’s appropriate to use when data on `StatefulSet` volumes may be
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irreplaceable and should only be deleted manually.
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* **`whenDeleted` is `Delete` and `whenScaled` is `Retain`.**
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In this case, PVCs are deleted only when the entire `StatefulSet` is deleted. If the
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`StatefulSet` is scaled down, PVCs are not touched, meaning they are available to be reattached
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if a scale-up occurs with any data from the previous replica. This might be used for a temporary
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`StatefulSet`, such as in a CI instance or ETL pipeline, where the data on the `StatefulSet` is
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needed only during the lifetime of the `StatefulSet` lifetime, but while the task is running the
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data is not easily reconstructible. Any retained state is needed for any replicas that scale
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down and then up.
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* **`whenDeleted` and `whenScaled` are both `Delete`.**
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PVCs are deleted immediately when their replica is no longer needed. Note this does not include
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when a `Pod` is deleted and a new version rescheduled, for example when a node is drained and
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`Pods` need to migrate elsewhere. The PVC is deleted only when the replica is no longer needed
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as signified by a scale-down or `StatefulSet` deletion. This use case is for when data does not
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need to live beyond the life of its replica. Perhaps the data is easily reconstructable and the
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cost savings of deleting unused PVCs is more important than quick scale-up, or perhaps that when
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a new replica is created, any data from a previous replica is not usable and must be
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reconstructed anyway.
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* **`whenDeleted` is `Retain` and `whenScaled` is `Delete`.**
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This is similar to the previous case, when there is little benefit to keeping PVCs for fast
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reuse during scale-up. An example of a situation where you might use this is an Elasticsearch
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cluster. Typically you would scale that workload up and down to match demand, whilst ensuring a
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minimum number of replicas (for example: 3). When scaling down, data is migrated away from
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removed replicas and there is no benefit to retaining those PVCs. However, it can be useful to
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bring the entire Elasticsearch cluster down temporarily for maintenance. If you need to take the
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Elasticsearch system offline, you can do this by temporarily deleting the `StatefulSet`, and
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then bringing the Elasticsearch cluster back by recreating the `StatefulSet`. The PVCs holding
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the Elasticsearch data will still exist and the new replicas will automatically use them.
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Visit the
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[documentation](/docs/concepts/workloads/controllers/statefulset/#persistentvolumeclaim-policies) to
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see all the details.
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## What’s next?
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Try it out! The `StatefulSetAutoDeletePVC` feature gate is beta and enabled by default on
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cluster running Kubernetes 1.27. Create a `StatefulSet` using the new policy, test it out and tell
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us what you think!
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I'm very curious to see if this owner reference mechanism works well in practice. For example, I
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realized there is no mechanism in Kubernetes for knowing who set a reference, so it’s possible that
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the `StatefulSet` controller may fight with custom controllers that set their own
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references. Fortunately, maintaining the existing retention behavior does not involve any new owner
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references, so default behavior will be compatible.
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Please tag any issues you report with the label `sig/apps` and assign them to Matthew Cary
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([@mattcary](https://github.com/mattcary) at GitHub).
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Enjoy!
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