Configuring affinity and nodeSelector rules for Dynamic Engine

Last updated: 10/29/2026

Use nodeSelector and affinity rules in Dynamic Engine Helm charts to control pod scheduling across different node groups in your Kubernetes cluster.

Starting with Dynamic Engine v1.1.0, you can set specific affinity rules to isolate services on specific nodes for security, performance, or resource optimization purposes. For example, you can appropriate a large-size group of nodes for intense pod runs.

Dynamic Engine v1.1.0 supports both nodeSelector (simple label-based selection) and affinity rules (complex scheduling logic) in Helm values files.

Important: This customization can be applied during initial chart installation or during upgrade.

Before you begin

Your Kubernetes cluster must be configured with multiple node groups (node pools) with appropriate labels. See the related documentation from your cloud provider on how to set up this configuration, for example, if you are using Kubernetes with GKE, see Create and manage cluster and node pool labels.
You must have basic knowledge of Kubernetes affinity rules.

About this task

By default, Dynamic Engine pods are scheduled on any available nodes in your cluster. With node affinity and node selector rules, you can control pod placement to achieve specific objectives such as:

Isolate permanent services on smaller, dedicated nodes
Run workloads like Jobs, Routes, or Data Services on larger nodes with particular instance types

The example node labels to be used are:

instanceType=large
instanceType=medium
qlik-dynamic-engine-tasks=true

Procedure

In the Kubernetes machine, unzip the Helm deployment zip file previously downloaded.
Create a custom values file using nodeSelector for global scheduling rules.
Example
In this example, a global rule is defined to run permanent services for infrastructure on medium nodes. This rule schedules all Dynamic Engine and environment pods on nodes labeled instanceType=medium:
```
cat <<EOF > custom-medium-instance-for-infrastructure-values.yaml
global:
  nodeSelector:
    instanceType: medium
EOF
```
The nodeSelector is suitable for simple exact match; it does not support logic expressions.
Alternatively, create a custom values file using affinity rules to achieve the same result with more advanced scheduling logic.
Example
This example achieves the same result as the nodeSelector approach but using nodeAffinity:
```
cat <<EOF > custom-medium-instance-for-infrastructure-values.yaml
global:
  affinity:
    nodeAffinity:
      requiredDuringSchedulingIgnoredDuringExecution:
        nodeSelectorTerms:
          - matchExpressions:
              - key: instanceType
                operator: In
                values: medium
EOF
```
Information noteTip: nodeSelector and affinity rules can be combined. If you specify both, a node must satisfy both rules for the pod to be scheduled on it.

Deploy the Dynamic Engine and Dynamic Engine environment with your global scheduling rules.

helm upgrade --install dynamic-engine-$DYNAMIC_ENGINE_ID -f $DYNAMIC_ENGINE_ID-values.yaml  \
 -f custom-medium-instance-for-infrastructure-values.yaml \
 oci://ghcr.io/talend/helm/dynamic-engine \
 --version $DYNAMIC_ENGINE_VERSION

helm upgrade --install dynamic-engine-environment-$DYNAMIC_ENGINE_ENVIRONMENT_ID -f $DYNAMIC_ENGINE_ENVIRONMENT_ID-values.yaml  \
 -f custom-medium-instance-for-infrastructure-values.yaml \
 oci://ghcr.io/talend/helm/dynamic-engine-environment \
 --version $DYNAMIC_ENGINE_VERSION

For workload-specific scheduling, create another custom values file that constrain the pod runs on a large node group.
Example
In this example, a specific rule is defined to constraint data integration tasks and Data Service and Route tasks to large nodes with the qlik-dynamic-engine-tasks=true label:
```
cat <<EOF > custom-jobDeployment-dataServiceRouteDeployment-nodeSelector-values.yaml
configuration:
  jobDeployment:
    nodeSelector:
      instanceType: large
      qlik-dynamic-engine-tasks: "true"
  dataServiceRouteDeployment:
    nodeSelector:
      instanceType: large
      qlik-dynamic-engine-tasks: "true"
EOF
```

Deploy the Dynamic Engine environment with workload-specific scheduling rules.

Example

This workload rule is specific to the task processing services and so is only applied on a Dynamic Engine environment.

helm upgrade --install dynamic-engine-environment-$DYNAMIC_ENGINE_ENVIRONMENT_ID \
 -f $DYNAMIC_ENGINE_ENVIRONMENT_ID-values.yaml  \
 -f custom-jobDeployment-dataServiceRouteDeployment-nodeSelector-values.yaml \
 oci://ghcr.io/talend/helm/dynamic-engine-environment \
 --version $DYNAMIC_ENGINE_VERSION

Results

Once deployed successfully, all Dynamic Engine and environment pods are scheduled according to your custom affinity and nodeSelector rules. Permanent services for the infrastructure run on their designated nodes, and customer workloads run on nodes optimized for their resource requirements.

Troubleshooting:

If a pod (or pods) cannot be scheduled on a node, use the following steps to diagnose and resolve the issue.

Identify the scheduling failure:
Use the kubectl describe pod command to get detailed information about the scheduling error:
```
kubectl describe pod <pod-name> -n <namespace>
```
Look for the Events section, which provides clues about why the scheduler failed. Common reasons include:
- Rules not matching any nodes
- Insufficient CPU or memory resources on available nodes
- Taint and toleration issues on nodes that prevent pod scheduling
Verify rules:
Ensure that the nodes have the required labels specified in your rules:
```
kubectl get nodes --show-labels
```
Compare the labels on your nodes with the labels specified in your values files.
Verify resource constraints:
One of the most common reasons for scheduling failures is insufficient resources (CPU, memory). Verify the resource requests and limits in your pods:
```
kubectl describe nodes
```
If your cluster does not have enough nodes to satisfy resource requests, scale up your cluster by adding more nodes.
Verify the taint and toleration specifications on the designated nodes.
Taints can prevent nodes from scheduling certain pods. If your nodes have taints and your pods do not have corresponding tolerations, pods cannot be scheduled. For further information about Kubernetes taints and tolerations, see Taints and Tolerations.

Starting with Dynamic Engine v1.4.0, tolerations are supported in Helm values files. To configure toleration rules and allow pods to be scheduled on tainted nodes, see Configuring tolerations rules for Dynamic Engine.

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