Dynamic Resource Allocation

Request and share node level resources among Kubernetes pods.

Kubernetes Dynamic Resource Allocation (DRA) is a new way of sharing host level resources into pods. These resources include GPU devices, high performance networking, and other hardware that a workload may need access to.

DRA reached GA in Kubernetes 1.34, and the feature gate is locked on (always enabled, cannot be disabled) starting in Kubernetes 1.35. DRA replaces device plugins for accessing resources from workloads.

Prerequisites

Ensure you have the following:

• A cluster running Kubernetes 1.33 or later. DRA requires no additional configuration and is enabled by default.

• At least one node with NVIDIA hardware, configured using either NVIDIA GPU (OSS drivers) or NVIDIA GPU (Proprietary drivers).

1. Deploy the NVIDIA DRA plugin via Helm

Use helm to install the DRA plugin.

helm repo add nvidia https://helm.ngc.nvidia.com/nvidia
helm repo update

kubectl create ns nvidia-dra-driver-gpu
kubectl label --overwrite ns nvidia-dra-driver-gpu pod-security.kubernetes.io/enforce=privileged

First we need to disable the device plugin component of GPU operator since we will be using the DRA plugin instead.

helm upgrade --wait  --install -n gpu-operator gpu-operator nvidia/gpu-operator \
  --set driver.enabled=false \
  --set toolkit.enabled=false \
  --set hostPaths.driverInstallDir=/usr/local \
  --set devicePlugin.enabled=false

helm upgrade --install -n nvidia-dra-driver-gpu \
  --set resources.gpus.enabled=true \
  --set nvidiaDriverRoot=/usr/local \
  --set gpuResourcesEnabledOverride=true \
  nvidia-dra-driver-gpu nvidia/nvidia-dra-driver-gpu

Note: the validation steps currently mention older versions of resource claims, follow the steps below to verify that the DRA plugin is running and managing the NVIDIA GPU resources.

Refer to the dra validation documentation.

kubectl -n nvidia-dra-driver-gpu get pods

Verify ResourceSlice objects

kubectl get resourceslices

There should be a ResourceSlice object with the gpu.nvidia.com driver.

2. Deploy test workload

Create a pod that consumes the ResourceSlice via a ResourceClaimTemplate.

---
apiVersion: v1
kind: Namespace
metadata:
  name: dra-gpu-share-test
---
apiVersion: resource.k8s.io/v1
kind: ResourceClaimTemplate
metadata:
  name: single-gpu
  namespace: dra-gpu-share-test
spec:
  spec:
    devices:
      requests:
      - name: gpu
        exactly:
          deviceClassName: gpu.nvidia.com
---
apiVersion: v1
kind: Pod
metadata:
  name: pod
  namespace: dra-gpu-share-test
  labels:
    app: pod
spec:
  containers:
  - name: ctr0
    image: ubuntu:22.04
    command: ["bash", "-c"]
    args: ["nvidia-smi -L; trap 'exit 0' TERM; sleep 9999 & wait"]
    resources:
      claims:
      - name: shared-gpu
  - name: ctr1
    image: ubuntu:22.04
    command: ["bash", "-c"]
    args: ["nvidia-smi -L; trap 'exit 0' TERM; sleep 9999 & wait"]
    resources:
      claims:
      - name: shared-gpu
  resourceClaims:
  - name: shared-gpu
    resourceClaimTemplateName: single-gpu
  tolerations:
  - key: "nvidia.com/gpu"
    operator: "Exists"
    effect: "NoSchedule"

kubectl apply -f dra-gpu-share-test.yaml

Verify that the pod is running and has access to the GPU resources.

kubectl logs pod -n dra-gpu-share-test --all-containers --prefix

The output is expected to show the same GPU UUID from both containers. Example:

[pod/pod/ctr0] GPU 0: NVIDIA A100-SXM4-40GB (UUID: GPU-4404041a-04cf-1ccf-9e70-f139a9b1e23c)
[pod/pod/ctr1] GPU 0: NVIDIA A100-SXM4-40GB (UUID: GPU-4404041a-04cf-1ccf-9e70-f139a9b1e23c)

clean up

kubectl delete ns dra-gpu-share-test

Notes

DRA is currently a beta Kubernetes feature and it is likely that it will change in the future. Make sure you consult your hardware vendor’s documentation for up-to-date configuration and deployment guides.