Hands-on Lab·Kubernetes and Cloud Native Associate
Scale to Zero on Kubernetes
Kubernetes will happily run zero replicas - that half of serverless is built in. What it will not do is start one because a request arrived, and that gap is the entire reason KEDA and Knative exist.
Cloud Native Architecture Guide 32 of 46 Beginner
- Kubernetes1.36.4
- Serverlessnone installed (no KEDA, no Knative)
- TimeAbout 15 min
- Reviewed22 August 2026
Written against the versions above. The objects here are long-stable. Quota and HPA behaviour has not changed materially in years.
| Server Name | IP Address | OS | Roles | CPU | RAM | HDD |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CKA1001 | 192.168.0.175 | Ubuntu 26.04 LTS | Control Plane Node | 2 Core | 4 GB | 50 GB |
| CKA1001-NODE02 | 192.168.0.177 | Ubuntu 26.04 LTS | Worker Node | 2 Core | 4 GB | 50 GB |
Before you start
- A Deployment you can scale. The autoscaling guide creates one.
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Zero is a valid replica count
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Nothing will wake it up
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The event-driven primitive you do have