Cloud Architecture

May 7, 2026 · Cloud Native

Taming IP Management in a 100k‑Pod Production Cluster: Deep Dive into Kubernetes IPAM

The article walks through a real‑world IP exhaustion incident in a 100,000‑Pod Kubernetes cluster, explains the IPAM call chain, analyzes trade‑offs such as consistency versus performance, and presents a layered, observable, and automated IP address management architecture using Calico, Whereabouts, and custom controllers to keep pod creation fast, reliable, and scalable.