Serverless Kubernetes (ASK) is ideal for stateless, bursty workloads. It removes the operational burden of managing node provisioning, scaling, and maintenance, aligning perfectly with the need for minimal overhead and rapid scaling. Users only pay for the vCPU and memory resources consumed by the pods, making it cost-effective for variable traffic.

Using a Virtual Node to schedule pods as Elastic Container Instances (ECI) allows the cluster to burst to serverless containers. The nightly batch jobs can be configured to run on ECI, eliminating the need for persistent, paid worker nodes during idle daytime hours. This provides the best balance of cost savings and performance on demand.

The `kubectl describe pod` command provides Kubernetes-level events for the pod’s lifecycle. An exit code 137 typically indicates an Out Of Memory (OOM) kill. The events section will often show a clear message like ‘OOMKilled’ or detail a failed liveness/readiness probe, giving a direct and definitive cause from the orchestrator’s perspective.

ACR Enterprise Edition includes built-in vulnerability scanning. When integrated with ACK, you can deploy the ACR admission controller webhook. This controller can intercept requests to create pods and deny deployments if the image fails policy checks (e.g., has high-severity vulnerabilities), enforcing security directly within the deployment workflow.

VPN Gateway or CEN creates a secure, encrypted tunnel between the on-premises network and the Alibaba Cloud VPC. Once the networks are bridged, the on-premises systems can resolve service names via the ACK cluster’s CoreDNS (accessible internally in the VPC) and route traffic to the ClusterIPs directly over the private connection, meeting security and connectivity requirements.

A StatefulSet is the Kubernetes resource designed specifically for stateful applications. It provides: 1) Stable, unique pod identifiers (ordinal hostnames), 2) Stable, persistent storage linked to the pod identity via PVCs, and 3) Ordered, graceful deployment and scaling. A Headless Service is used for direct pod discovery. This combination is essential for databases and similar workloads.

Virtual Node with Elastic Container Instances (ECI) provides immediate, serverless container capacity. When HPA determines more pods are needed but the existing nodes lack resources, it can schedule the overflow pods onto ECI within seconds. This eliminates the wait time for new ECS VMs to be provisioned and joined to the cluster, ensuring scaling keeps pace with sudden demand surges.

Alibaba Cloud’s CloudOps Orchestration Service (OOS) offers a managed, secure, and native GitOps solution through its ACS:GitOps template. It handles the secure connectivity between your Git repository and the ACK cluster, performs the synchronization, and provides execution logs and management within the Alibaba Cloud ecosystem, reducing operational overhead compared to self-managing Argo CD/Flux.

A Disk (ESSD) PersistentVolume with the ReadWriteOnce (RWO) access mode most closely mimics the behavior of a local disk on an ECS instance. It provides block storage that can be attached to a single pod at a time, offering low latency and high performance for a monolithic application’s temporary files, just like a traditional server disk.

Serverless Kubernetes (ASK) is ideal for stateless, bursty workloads. It removes the operational burden of managing node provisioning, scaling, and maintenance, aligning perfectly with the need for minimal overhead and rapid scaling. Users only pay for the vCPU and memory resources consumed by the pods, making it cost-effective for variable traffic.0