How do CPU and memory limits affect a .NET service in a container, and what would you monitor before tuning them?

Container CPU and memory limits with the .NET runtime

Connects orchestrator requests and limits to .NET GC, thread-pool behavior, throttling, OOM termination, and capacity planning.

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CPU requests influence scheduling and limits can throttle sustained computation. Memory limits create a hard boundary that includes managed heaps, native memory, stacks, buffers, and runtime overhead. Modern .NET detects container limits and adjusts GC behavior, but the application still needs headroom. I would measure realistic working set, allocation rate, GC pauses, CPU, latency, and concurrency before choosing requests and limits.

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Requests, limits, CPU throttling, memory working set, GC heaps, OOM kills, thread pools, concurrency, and capacity evidence.

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Container limits are runtime constraints, not just scheduler metadata. A service can be CPU-throttled or killed for exceeding memory even when the host still has spare resources.
CPU requests influence scheduling and limits can throttle sustained computation. Memory limits create a hard boundary that includes managed heaps, native memory, stacks, buffers, and runtime overhead. Modern .NET detects container limits and adjusts GC behavior, but the application still needs headroom. I would measure realistic working set, allocation rate, GC pauses, CPU, latency, and concurrency before choosing requests and limits.
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An OOM kill may leave no managed OutOfMemoryException or application log because the platform terminates the process. CPU throttling can appear as high latency with modest reported host CPU. I bound request and worker concurrency, stream large payloads, and avoid caches that assume host memory is available. Requests should represent normal demand so scheduling is honest, while limits protect neighbors without sitting directly on the typical peak.

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Setting memory limits equal to the managed heap target.
Reading only host CPU metrics.
Load-testing without production resource limits.
Raising limits before identifying allocations or concurrency.

How do CPU and memory limits affect a .NET service in a container, and what would you monitor before tuning them?

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