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Health Checks in Kubernetes Part 2: Managing Traffic Flow with Readiness
In this second article of our health checks series, we will focus on Readiness Probes in Kubernetes. While a Liveness Probe ensures that an application is running, a Readiness Probe ensures that the application is ready to serve traffic. If the application is temporarily unable to handle requests (for example, during initialization or maintenance), the Readiness Probe will temporarily remove it from service without restarting the container.
By the end of this tutorial, you will:
- Learn how to add Readiness Probes to a C# API.
- Understand how Readiness Probes prevent traffic from being routed to unready Pods.
- Be able to test scenarios where traffic should be stopped to a Pod and resumed when it’s ready again.
Why Use Readiness Probes in Kubernetes?
Readiness Probes ensure that traffic is only routed to Pods that are fully ready to handle requests. Unlike Liveness Probes, which restart failing containers, Readiness Probes simply remove Pods from service when they’re temporarily unable to handle traffic (such as during startup or recovery) without killing or restarting them.
