Pods mapped directly to Deployments instead of ReplicaSets in Aria Ops

Products

• VCF Operations/Automation (formerly VMware Aria Suite)

Issue/Introduction

When reviewing Kubernetes resources in Aria Ops, Deployments show output while ReplicaSets do not. Pods are displayed directly under Deployments instead of being mapped through ReplicaSets.

The mapping defines how Aria Ops interprets relationships, and it determines how scenarios such as rolling upgrades are handled, where multiple ReplicaSets typically exist in Kubernetes.

Environment

8.18.3

VMware Aria Ops. management pack for K8s : 2.2.0.24050822

VMware Aria Ops. management pack for TCA : 1.0.0

Cause

Aria Ops does not track ReplicaSets anymore because they do not provide any unique metrics and are treated as redundant objects.

In Kubernetes, Deployments are the primary controller, and ReplicaSets are only intermediaries used during scaling or rolling upgrades. Since Kubernetes itself does not expose metrics for ReplicaSets, Aria Ops directly associates pods with Deployments.

Resolution

• Each network function deployed by TCA carries a deployment name, which is also tagged as a label (tca-helm-release) on Kubernetes resources. Aria Ops uses this deployment name to query and link resources.
  
  
• The monitoring hierarchy is simplified:
  
  

  Earlier: Deployment → ReplicaSets → Pods → Containers

  Now: Deployment → Pods → Containers

• During rolling upgrades, ReplicaSets may transition into a “Not Existing” state, but pods remain visible under the same Deployment.
  
  
• In normal conditions, all pods of a Deployment are tied to a single ReplicaSet. However, if there is an issue while starting pods from a new ReplicaSet, multiple ReplicaSets may temporarily exist. In such cases, Aria Ops still shows all pods directly under the Deployment.