Challenges and Solutions: Mastering Device Failures in Kubernetes Pods

Kubernetes is the de facto standard for container orchestration, but when it comes to handling specialized hardware like GPUs and other accelerators, things get complicated. In this blog post, we take a look at the challenges of managing failures when running Pods with devices in Kubernetes. These insights are based on the presentation by Sergey Kanzhelev and Mrunal Patel at KubeCon NA 2024. You can view the presentation and the recording.

The AI/ML Boom and Its Impact on Kubernetes

The rise of AI/ML workloads brings new challenges for Kubernetes. These workloads often heavily rely on specialized hardware, and any device failure can significantly impact performance and lead to frustrating disruptions. As highlighted in the Llama paper in 2024, hardware issues, particularly GPU failures, are one of the main causes of disruptions in AI/ML training. You can also learn about the efforts NVIDIA puts into handling device failures and maintenance by watching the talk by Ryan Hallisey and Piotr Prokop “All Your GPUs Are Belong to Us: An Inside Look at NVIDIA’s Self-Healing GeForce NOW Infrastructure” (recording), where they discuss 19 remediation requests per 1000 nodes per day!

We also see data centers offering spot usage models and overbooking performance, making device failures the norm and part of the business model.

However, Kubernetes still views resources as very static. The resource is either present or not. And if it is present, it is assumed to remain fully functional—Kubernetes offers only limited support for handling complete or partial hardware failures. These long-standing assumptions, combined with the overall complexity of a setup, lead to a variety of failure modes that we will discuss here.

At ayedo, we support you as a Kubernetes partner in mastering these challenges and making your infrastructure more resilient. Our Enterprise Cloud solutions are specifically designed to operate even critical workloads safely and reliably.

Source: Kubernetes Blog