Add documentation for Scheduler performance tuning (#10048)

* Add documentation for Scheduler performance tuning * Update scheduler-perf-tuning.md
2018-09-11 21:48:32 -07:00
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+---
+reviewers:
+- bsalamat
+title: Scheduler Performance Tuning
+content_template: templates/concept
+weight: 70
+---
+
+{{% capture overview %}}
+
+{{< feature-state for_k8s_version="1.12" >}}
+
+Kube-scheduler is the Kubernetes default scheduler. It is responsible for
+placement of Pods on Nodes in a cluster. Nodes in a cluster that meet the
+scheduling requirements of a Pod are called "feasible" Nodes for the Pod. The
+scheduler finds feasible Nodes for a Pod and then runs a set of functions to
+score the feasible Nodes and picks a Node with the highest score among the
+feasible ones to run the Pod. The scheduler then notifies the API server about this
+decision in a process called "Binding".
+
+{{% /capture %}}
+
+{{% capture body %}}
+
+## Percentage of Nodes to Score
+
+Before Kubernetes 1.12, Kube-scheduler used to check the feasibility of all the
+nodes in a cluster and then scored the feasible ones. Kubernetes 1.12 has a new
+feature that allows the scheduler to stop looking for more feasible nodes once
+it finds a certain number of them. This improves the scheduler's performance in
+large clusters. The number is specified as a percentage of the cluster size and
+is controlled by a configuration option called `percentageOfNodesToScore`. The
+range should be between 1 and 100. Other values are considered as 100%. The
+default value of this option is 50%. A cluster administrator can change this value by providing a
+different value in the scheduler configuration. However, it may not be necessary to change this value.
+
+```yaml
+apiVersion: componentconfig/v1alpha1
+kind: KubeSchedulerConfiguration
+algorithmSource:
+  provider: DefaultProvider
+
+...
+
+percentageOfNodesToScore: 50
+```
+
+{{< note >}} **Note**: In clusters with zero or less than 50 feasible nodes, the
+scheduler still checks all the nodes, simply because there are not enough
+feasible nodes to stop the scheduler's search early. {{< /note >}}
+
+**To disable this feature**, you can set `percentageOfNodesToScore` to 100.
+
+### Tuning percentageOfNodesToScore
+
+`percentageOfNodesToScore` must be a value between 1 and 100
+with the default value of 50. There is also a hardcoded minimum value of 50
+nodes which is applied internally. The scheduler tries to find at
+least 50 nodes regardless of the value of `percentageOfNodesToScore`. This means
+that changing this option to lower values in clusters with several hundred nodes
+will not have much impact on the number of feasible nodes that the scheduler
+tries to find. This is intentional as this option is unlikely to improve
+performance noticeably in smaller clusters. In large clusters with over a 1000
+nodes setting this value to lower numbers may show a noticeable performance
+improvement.
+
+An important note to consider when setting this value is that when a smaller
+number of nodes in a cluster are checked for feasibility, some nodes are not
+sent to be scored for a given Pod. As a result, a Node which could possibly
+score a higher value for running the given Pod might not even be passed to the
+scoring phase. This would result in a less than ideal placement of the Pod. For
+this reason, the value should not be set to very low percentages. A general rule
+of thumb is to never set the value to anything lower than 30. Lower values
+should be used only when the scheduler's throughput is critical for your
+application and the score of nodes is not important. In other words, you prefer
+to run the Pod on any Node as long as it is feasible.
+
+It is not recommended to lower this value from its default if your cluster has
+only several hundred Nodes. It is unlikely to improve the scheduler's
+performance significantly.
+
+### How the scheduler iterates over Nodes
+
+This section is intended for those who want to understand the internal details
+of this feature.
+
+In order to give all the Nodes in a cluster a fair chance of being considered
+for running Pods, the scheduler iterates over the nodes in a round robin
+fashion. You can imagine that Nodes are in an array. The scheduler starts from
+the start of the array and checks feasibility of the nodes until it finds enough
+Nodes as specified by `percentageOfNodesToScore`. For the next Pod, the
+scheduler continues from the point in the Node array that it stopped at when checking
+feasibility of Nodes for the previous Pod.
+
+If Nodes are in multiple zones, the scheduler iterates over Nodes in various
+zones to ensure that Nodes from different zones are considered in the
+feasibility checks. As an example, consider six nodes in two zones:
+
+```
+Zone 1: Node 1, Node 2, Node 3, Node 4
+Zone 2: Node 5, Node 6
+```
+
+The Scheduler evaluates feasibility of the nodes in this order:
+
+```
+Node 1, Node 5, Node 2, Node 6, Node 3, Node 4
+```
+
+After going over all the Nodes, it goes back to Node 1.
+
+{{% /capture %}}