Kubernetes v1.34: DRA Consumable Capacity

Kubernetes v1.34: DRA Consumable Capacity Background: device sharing via ResourceClaims Benefits of DRA consumable capacity support Device sharing across multiple ResourceClaims or DeviceRequests Device resource allocation DistinctAttribute constraint How to use consumable capacity? As a DRA driver developer As a consumer Integration with DRA device status What can you do next? Conclusion Further Reading Dynamic Resource Allocation (DRA) is a Kubernetes API for managing scarce resources across Pods and containers. It enables flexible resource requests, going beyond simply allocating N number of devices to support more granular usage scenarios. With DRA, users can request specific types of devices based on their attributes, define custom configurations tailored to their workloads, and even share the same resource among multiple containers or Pods. In this blog, we focus on the device sharing feature and dive into a new capability introduced in Kubernetes 1.34: DRA consumable capacity , which extends DRA to support finer-grained device sharing. From the beginning, DRA introduced the ability for multiple Pods to share a device by referencing the same ResourceClaim. This design decouples resource allocation from specific hardware, allowing for more dynamic and reusable provisioning of devices. In Kubernetes 1.33, the new support for partitionable devices allowed resource drivers to advertise slices of a device that are available, rather than exposing the entire device as an all-or-nothing resource. This enabled Kubernetes to model shareable hardware more accurately. But there was still a missing piece: it didn't yet support scenarios where the device driver manages fine-grained, dynamic portions of a device resource — like network bandwidth — based on user demand, or to share those resources independently of ResourceClaims, which are restricted by their spec and namespace. That’s where consumable capacity for DRA comes in. Here's a taste of what you get in a cluster with the DRAConsumableCapacity feature gate enabled. DRAConsumableCapacity Resource drivers can now support sharing the same device — or even a slice of a device — across multiple ResourceClaims or across multiple DeviceRequests.