What are requests and limits in Kubernetes? What is the difference between them?

In Kubernetes, requests and limits are resource management parameters for containers.

• requests — the minimum amount of resources (CPU, memory) that the container is guaranteed to receive. The scheduler uses these values to determine on which node to place the pod.

• limits — the maximum amount of resources the container can use. If the container exceeds the CPU limit, its performance will be limited; if it exceeds the memory limit, the container may be killed.

Difference:

• requests affect scheduling and guarantee minimum resources.
• limits restrict maximum resource consumption during operation.

Example:

resources:
  requests:
    memory: "128Mi"
    cpu: "500m"
  limits:
    memory: "256Mi"
    cpu: "1"