ACK Serverless Pro clusters are built for enterprise-grade production workloads that require higher reliability, stronger security, and a financially backed service level agreement (SLA). Compared to ACK Serverless Basic clusters, the Pro tier offloads master node maintenance, etcd backup, and cluster monitoring from your team to Alibaba Cloud—so your engineers can focus on application delivery rather than infrastructure management.
When to use ACK Serverless Pro
ACK Serverless Pro clusters are a strong fit when your workload has one or more of the following requirements:
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SLA with financial accountability: Your workload requires a 99.95% uptime guarantee for the cluster API server, backed by compensation clauses.
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Large-scale pod density: You need to run up to 50,000 pods per node in a production environment.
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Regulatory or compliance requirements: Your industry (financial services, enterprise IT) mandates encrypted data management and auditable security controls.
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Reduced operational burden: You want Alibaba Cloud to manage etcd backups, cluster monitoring, and control plane security, rather than your own team.
If your workload is non-production or requires only basic availability (99.90%, no compensation), ACK Serverless Basic clusters are sufficient.
Typical scenarios
ACK Serverless Pro clusters are designed for the following enterprise segments:
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Internet enterprises: Organizations that run large-scale production environments and require high stability, security, and observability for business management.
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Big data computing enterprises: Organizations that deploy large-scale data computing services and high-performance data processing workloads requiring high elasticity, stability, and efficiency.
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International enterprises running businesses in China: Organizations that prioritize security and require SLAs with compensation clauses for their China-region operations.
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Financial enterprises: Organizations that require SLAs with compensation clauses to meet regulatory and business continuity obligations.
Features
Reliability at scale
ACK Serverless Pro clusters support up to 50,000 pods per node. etcd is protected by high-frequency cold backups, high-frequency hot backups, and geo-disaster recovery, ensuring cluster state is recoverable after failures. Key control plane metrics are collected automatically, giving you visibility into potential risks before they affect your workloads.
Keep the pod count below 20,000 per node when a large number of pods are associated with the same Service.
Security
The control plane uses encrypted disks for etcd by default. In the data plane, kms-plugin encrypts Kubernetes Secrets using Key Management Service (KMS). The advanced security management feature lets you inspect running containers and enable auto-repair.
For detailed steps on data plane encryption, see Use KMS to encrypt Kubernetes Secrets.
SLA with compensation
ACK Serverless Pro clusters are covered by a 99.95% uptime SLA for the cluster API server, with compensation clauses. The SLA is contractually backed, making it suitable for workloads that require financial accountability from the infrastructure provider.
| Cluster tier | SLA | Compensation |
|---|---|---|
| ACK Serverless Pro | 99.95% | Supported |
| ACK Serverless Basic | 99.90% | Not supported |
Pricing
Comparison
The following table compares ACK Serverless Pro clusters with ACK Serverless Basic clusters.
|
Category |
Feature |
ACK Serverless |
|
|
ACK Serverless Pro cluster |
ACK Serverless Basic cluster |
||
|
Cluster size |
N/A |
Up to 50,000 pods on a node. Note
We recommend that you keep the number of pods under 20,000 if a large number of pods are associated with the Service. |
Up to 1,000 pods on a node. |
|
SLA |
N/A |
99.95% (supports compensation) |
99.90% (does not support compensation) |
|
API Server |
Custom parameter settings |
|
|
|
Availability monitoring |
|
|
|
|
ETCD |
High-frequency cold backups, high-frequency hot backups, and geo-disaster recovery |
|
|
|
Observability metrics |
|
|
|
|
Security management |
The advanced security management feature that supports data encryption. For more information, see Use KMS to encrypt Kubernetes Secrets. |
|
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