Migrating from VPA¶

This guide walks you through replacing the Kubernetes Vertical Pod Autoscaler (VPA) with attune. The migration can be done workload-by-workload with no downtime.

VPA vs Attune modes¶

VPA Mode	Attune Equivalent	Notes
`Off`	Observe or Recommend	Observe: data collection only. Recommend: collect and write recommendations to status
`Initial`	OneShot	Set resources once; Attune uses in-place resize instead of restart
`Auto` (with eviction)	Canary or Auto	In-place first; add `resizeMethod: InPlaceOrRecreate` if you want eviction fallback instead of skipping infeasible pods
`Recommend` (UpdateMode=Off)	Recommend	Write recommendations to status without acting

Step-by-step migration¶

1. Install Attune alongside VPA¶

Both can run in the same cluster. Install Attune per the Installation guide.

For each VPA object, create a matching AttunePolicy. Map the VPA config to AttunePolicy fields:

VPA field	AttunePolicy field
`targetRef`	`spec.targetRef` (same structure)
`resourcePolicy.containerPolicies[].minAllowed`	`spec.cpu.minAllowed`, `spec.memory.minAllowed`
`resourcePolicy.containerPolicies[].maxAllowed`	`spec.cpu.maxAllowed`, `spec.memory.maxAllowed`
`resourcePolicy.containerPolicies[].controlledValues`	`spec.cpu.controlledValues`, `spec.memory.controlledValues`
`updatePolicy.updateMode`	`spec.updateStrategy.type`

Example VPA:

apiVersion: autoscaling.k8s.io/v1
kind: VerticalPodAutoscaler
metadata:
  name: my-app
spec:
  targetRef:
    apiVersion: apps/v1
    kind: Deployment
    name: my-app
  resourcePolicy:
    containerPolicies:
      - containerName: "*"
        minAllowed:
          cpu: 100m
          memory: 128Mi
        maxAllowed:
          cpu: 4
          memory: 8Gi
  updatePolicy:
    updateMode: "Auto"

Equivalent AttunePolicy:

apiVersion: attune.io/v1alpha1
kind: AttunePolicy
metadata:
  name: my-app
  namespace: default
spec:
  targetRef:
    kind: Deployment
    name: my-app
  metricsSource:
    prometheus:
      address: http://prometheus-server.monitoring:80
    historyWindow: 168h
  cpu:
    percentile: 95
    overhead: "20"
    minAllowed: "100m"
    maxAllowed: "4000m"
  memory:
    percentile: 99
    overhead: "30"
    minAllowed: "128Mi"
    maxAllowed: "8Gi"
    allowDecrease: false
  updateStrategy:
    type: Recommend
    cooldown: 1h
    autoRevert: true

3. Compare recommendations¶

Let both run for at least one full historyWindow period (default 7 days). Compare the VPA recommendations with Attune recommendations:

kubectl get vpa my-app -o jsonpath='{.status.recommendation}' | jq .
kubectl get rsp my-app -o jsonpath='{.status.recommendations}' | jq .

4. Disable VPA for the workload¶

Set the VPA to Off mode or delete it:

kubectl delete vpa my-app

5. Promote Attune to Canary¶

kubectl patch rsp my-app --type merge \
  -p '{"spec":{"updateStrategy":{"type":"Canary","canary":{"percentage":10,"observationPeriod":"30m"}}}}'

6. Remove VPA entirely¶

Once all workloads are migrated:

helm uninstall vpa -n kube-system
kubectl delete crd verticalpodautoscalers.autoscaling.k8s.io \
  verticalpodautoscalercheckpoints.autoscaling.k8s.io

Warning

Do not run both VPA (in Auto/Initial mode) and Attune (in Canary/Auto mode) on the same workload. The conflict detector will warn you, but running both can cause competing resize operations.