ResourceQuota

ResourceQuota is a namespace-scoped resource in Kubernetes that enforces limits on the amount of resources a single namespace can consume within a cluster. It serves as a governance mechanism to prevent a single tenant or application from exhausting cluster resources and to provide predictable resource availability for other workloads.

A ResourceQuota object defines hard limits in its spec.hard field and is accompanied by status information that reflects current usage. The system tracks resource consumption across objects inside the namespace, such as pods, services, configmaps, secrets, persistent volume claims, and certain resource requests and limits. When new objects are created or updated, admission control enforces the defined quotas, denying requests that would exceed the specified limits. The status part of the object shows how much of each quota is currently used and how much remains.

Quotas can limit both counts of resources (for example, the number of pods or services) and aggregated resource quantities (for example, CPU, memory, and ephemeral storage requests and limits). Common quota fields include resources like pods, persistentvolumeclaims, configmaps, secrets, and more; quotas may also track requests and limits for CPU and memory. Optional scope selectors allow quotas to apply only to resources that match certain labels or conditions, enabling finer-grained control for teams or workloads.

Typical use cases include multi-tenant clusters, ensuring fair resource distribution, protecting critical services from resource starvation, and providing predictable capacity planning. Administrators define ResourceQuota objects to align namespace usage with available cluster capacity, balancing agility with operational safeguards.