Running Windows Workloads on Kubernetes: Node Pools, Scheduling, and Gotchas

February 22, 2026

Kubernetes

Windows-Node-Management, Hybrid-Cluster-Scheduling, Os-Specific-Deployment, Windows-Container-Troubleshooting

Windows, Windows-Containers, Node-Selector, Taints, Hybrid-Cluster, Containerd, Eks, Aks, Gke, Iis, Dotnet

Kubectl, Crictl, Az, Aws, Gcloud

Running Windows Workloads on Kubernetes#

Kubernetes supports Windows worker nodes alongside Linux worker nodes in the same cluster. This enables running Windows-native applications – .NET Framework services, IIS-hosted applications, Windows-specific middleware – on Kubernetes without rewriting them for Linux. However, Windows nodes are not interchangeable with Linux nodes. There are fundamental differences in networking, storage, container runtime behavior, and resource management that you must account for.

Core Constraints#

Before adding Windows nodes, understand what is and is not supported:

Taints, Tolerations, and Node Affinity: Controlling Pod Placement

February 21, 2026

Kubernetes

Intermediate

Pod-Scheduling, Node-Management, Workload-Isolation

Taints, Tolerations, Node-Affinity, Node-Selector, Scheduling, Gpu, Dedicated-Nodes

Kubectl

Taints, Tolerations, and Node Affinity#

Pod scheduling in Kubernetes defaults to “run anywhere there is room.” In production, that is rarely what you want. GPU workloads should land on GPU nodes. System components should not compete with application pods. Nodes being drained should stop accepting new work. Taints, tolerations, and node affinity give you control over where pods run and where they do not.

Taints: Repelling Pods from Nodes#

A taint is applied to a node and tells the scheduler “do not place pods here unless they explicitly tolerate this taint.” Taints have three parts: a key, a value, and an effect.