Add and delete worker pools

Add a worker pool to give a running cluster more capacity, or capacity of a different kind, while the pools it already has keep running. Delete a pool to remove nodes you are done with. Both happen on the cluster’s Node Pool tab. To change the size of an existing pool instead, see Resize or autoscale a worker pool.

Before you begin

• A cluster in the Ready or Worker Joined state.
• A role with the update permission on Kubernetes to add a pool, or both the update and the delete permissions to delete one. See Roles and permissions.
• On a prepaid account, enough credit for the new pool. TIR checks your credit and the free capacity before it adds the pool.

Find your pools

Open the cluster’s details page and select the Node Pool tab. Select a pool to see its plan, price, labels and taints, and the state of each node. For what each pool status means, see How a TIR Kubernetes cluster works.

Each worker pool row has buttons for the changes you can make to it. When the status blocks a change, holding the pointer over its button tells you why.

Add a worker pool

1. On the Node Pool tab, select Add Worker Pool. It works the same way as on the create form.
2. Keep the Pool name TIR suggests, which starts with worker-pool- and is unique in the cluster, or type your own. Use up to 128 lowercase letters, numbers, and hyphens, and start and end with a letter or number.
3. Set Number of nodes, from 1 to 25.
4. Choose a Computing resource, a Configuration of vCPUs and RAM, and a Pricing plan. Choose On-Demand while you are still learning how many nodes the pool needs. Estimated pool cost gives the cost for the number of nodes you set; prices for every plan are on E2E’s pricing page.
5. (Optional) Add node labels and taints. See Set node labels and taints.
6. Select Add node pool. If the pool needs more nodes than are free, TIR says how many are free. Lower the count or choose another resource to go on.

With a committed plan, the pool’s node count is fixed until its term ends, and you confirm it in Committed Plans Confirmation before TIR adds the pool: tick the box to accept that TIR deducts the full amount upfront and refunds nothing if you delete the pool early, then select Proceed. For how committed pools work, see Manage committed plans.

TIR queues the pool, which goes from Queued to Joining to Ready. While its nodes join, the cluster is Worker Joining, and returns to Ready when they have joined. Your existing pools and the pods on them keep running. If TIR refuses the pool, it gives the reason.

Delete a worker pool

You can delete any pool except the cluster’s last one.

Deleting a pool removes every node in it, with its local disk, and evicts the pods running on those nodes. The delete is permanent. Before you delete a pool, make sure your workloads have replicas on other pools. Keep their data on a persistent volume, which outlives any one node, rather than on a node’s own disk.

1. On the Node Pool tab, find the pool’s row and select Delete worker pool. Delete Worker Pool opens and asks you to confirm that TIR removes all worker nodes in the pool.
2. Tick the box that confirms you want to delete the pool, and select Delete Pool.

TIR queues the deletion and tells you so, and the pool shows Deleting until it is gone. Billing for an hourly pool stops the moment you ask to delete it. You paid for a committed pool’s term upfront, so you get nothing back if you delete it early.

Check the pools

On the Node Pool tab, a new pool shows Ready and lists each of its nodes. To see the same nodes from your machine, run kubectl get nodes with the cluster’s kubeconfig; see Connect to a Kubernetes cluster.

To change how many nodes a pool runs later, resize or autoscale it. If a pool stays on Joining or ends at Failed, see Troubleshooting TIR Kubernetes.