Explain the purpose and operation of resource constraints in Kubernetes.

In Kubernetes, resource limits are used to control the consumption of CPU and memory by containers in pods. They help prevent a situation where one container consumes too many resources, which could lead to degradation of other applications in the cluster.

Main parameters:

• requests — the minimum guaranteed amount of resources allocated to the container.
• limits — the maximum amount of resources the container can use.

If a container exceeds its memory limit, it will be killed (OOMKilled). If it exceeds the CPU limit, its usage will be restricted by the scheduler.

Example of configuration in a Pod manifest:

resources:
  requests:
    memory: "64Mi"
    cpu: "250m"
  limits:
    memory: "128Mi"
    cpu: "500m"

Thus, resource limits ensure stability and predictability of application performance in Kubernetes.