Container Resource Calculator

Kubernetes schedules pods based on requests but kills or throttles them based on limits, so getting both right from real observed usage — rather than guessing — is what keeps workloads stable without wasting cluster capacity. This calculator derives your CPU request from average usage plus a headroom percentage (request = avg usage × (1 + headroom%)), giving the scheduler a realistic guarantee rather than an arbitrary round number. The CPU limit is derived differently: it's peak usage plus only half your headroom percentage (limit = peak usage × (1 + headroom%/2)), reflecting that limits should track observed peaks closely enough to prevent runaway CPU use without throttling legitimate bursts — CPU throttling degrades performance but doesn't crash the pod, so a tighter margin above peak is tolerable.

Memory works differently because exceeding a memory limit is fatal: it gets OOMKilled, not throttled, so the memory limit uses your full headroom percentage above peak usage (limit = peak × (1 + headroom%)), not the halved figure used for CPU. Both requests are also multiplied out across your replica count to show total cluster-wide resource consumption for the workload, and the request-to-limit ratios indicate how much burst headroom each replica has above its guaranteed allocation — a ratio near 100% leaves little room to burst before hitting the limit. These outputs are only as good as the usage data you feed in: use real p50/average and p99/peak metrics from your monitoring system over a representative window, not synthetic or single-point-in-time samples, or you risk under-provisioning for real traffic spikes.