Alongside scaling pods, Kubernetes can also scale the number of nodes that run within the Kubernetes cluster. The number of nodes can be scaled using the following commands:

1. First, get the information pertaining to the current environment by requesting the number of nodes:

az aks show --resource-group mpn-rg-kubernetes --name mykubernetescluster  --query agentPoolProfiles

2. Then, use this command to update the nodepool. Extract the name of the nodepool from the result of the last command:

az aks scale --resource-group mpn-rg-kubernetes --name mykubernetescluster --node-count 2 --nodepool-name nodepool1

Scaling the number of nodes up can increase the performance drastically. This will also make the cluster more expensive. By scaling the number of cluster nodes down, costs can decrease and you are only using the resources that are actually required by your application. To keep track of this, the nodes can also be autoscaled.