clusterwide

Clusterwide describes something that applies across an entire cluster rather than a single node, namespace, or component. In distributed systems, cluster-wide scope is used for resources, policies, settings, and operations that must be consistent and available across the whole cluster. This scope contrasts with more granular scopes such as per-node, per-pod, or per-namespace.

In Kubernetes, cluster-wide resources are defined at the cluster level and are not bound to any namespace. Examples include nodes, PersistentVolumes, StorageClasses, and CustomResourceDefinitions. Role-based access controls such as ClusterRole and ClusterRoleBinding are cluster-scoped. Some admission control configurations and cluster-wide network policies also apply across the entire cluster. Conversely, most Kubernetes objects like Deployments, Services, and ConfigMaps exist within namespaces.

Management considerations for cluster-wide elements emphasize centralized governance and consistent security policies. Changes affect all workloads and nodes, so testing, versioning, and access control design are critical. Observability and auditing should cover the entire cluster to detect cross-cutting issues. High availability, disaster recovery, and upgrade planning must account for cluster-wide components, since failures or misconfigurations can have widespread impact.

In other contexts, cluster-wide can refer to operations or policies that span multiple nodes or the entire cluster in databases, search engines, or data processing frameworks. The term highlights scope and potential impact, guiding configuration, access control, and governance decisions to ensure uniform behavior across the cluster.