Size control plane CPU and memory for the API server, scheduler and controller manager.
Control plane sizing scales with cluster size (nodes, pods, objects) and API request rate. API server needs ~1 core per 250 QPS, etcd needs ~1 core per 500 QPS plus memory proportional to stored objects. These are heuristics based on Kubernetes community guidance for production clusters.
API Server CPU
apiCPU = max(2, ceil(QPS / 250))
Yes — for production clusters, dedicated control plane nodes prevent workload interference and ensure the API server, etcd, and scheduler have guaranteed resources.
etcd is the bottleneck for all state changes — slow etcd (high latency, disk saturation) directly causes slow API responses, failed leader elections, and cluster instability.