Key Concepts

Operators

DevZero uses the Kubernetes operator pattern to extend cluster functionality. Each operator has a specific responsibility:

Recommendations

A recommendation is a suggested change to a Kubernetes resource. DevZero generates recommendations by comparing actual resource usage against current requests and limits.

If enabled in the policy, DevZero will apply the recommendation reactively as well as proactively (by analyzing historical behavior).

Each recommendation includes:

• Target resource -- the deployment, statefulset, or daemonset to modify
• Current values -- existing CPU/memory/GPU requests and limits, and replica counts
• Recommended values -- suggested values based on observed utilization
• Confidence level -- based on the amount of historical data available
• Projected savings -- estimated cost reduction

Recommendations can be reviewed in the dashboard and applied manually, or auto-applied based on policies.

Policies

A policy defines the rules for how DevZero optimizes your cluster. Policies control:

• Scope -- which namespaces, labels, or workload types are targeted
• Aggressiveness -- how tightly to fit resources to usage (conservative, moderate, aggressive)
• Guardrails -- minimum and maximum resource values that can't be exceeded
• Approval mode -- automatic application vs. audit-only
• Schedule -- time windows when changes are allowed (e.g., business hours only)
• Optimization application mode -- spec patching vs. checkpoint/restore
• In-cluster MPA -- using a cluster-local MPA (multi-dimensional pod autoscaler) for latency sensitive workflows

Live Migration

Live migration (aka checkpoint-restore) allows DevZero to resize workloads without restarting pods. This is critical for stateful applications (databases, caches, queues) that can't tolerate downtime.

CRDs

DevZero operators use Custom Resource Definitions (CRDs) to represent their state in Kubernetes:

• WorkloadRecommendation -- a pending or applied recommendation for a workload
• NodeGroupRecommendation -- a recommendation for node pool changes
• NodeClass, NodePool, NodeClaim -- cluster autoscaling state tracking
• VulnerabilityReport -- security scan results for a container image
• ConfigAuditReport -- configuration compliance results
• ClusterComplianceReport -- cluster-wide compliance status

Supported Resource Types

DevZero can optimize the following Kubernetes resource types:

Core Workloads

Extended Workloads

DevZero also supports third-party resource types commonly found in data and ML platforms: