website/content/en/docs/reference/glossary/replica.md

title	id	date	full_link	short_description	aka	tags
Replica	replica	2023-06-11		Replicas are copies of pods, ensuring availability, scalability, and fault tolerance by maintaining identical instances.		fundamental workload

A copy or duplicate of a {{< glossary_tooltip text="Pod" term_id="pod" >}} or a set of pods. Replicas ensure high availability, scalability, and fault tolerance by maintaining multiple identical instances of a pod.

Replicas are commonly used in Kubernetes to achieve the desired application state and reliability. They enable workload scaling and distribution across multiple nodes in a cluster.

By defining the number of replicas in a Deployment or ReplicaSet, Kubernetes ensures that the specified number of instances are running, automatically adjusting the count as needed.

Replica management allows for efficient load balancing, rolling updates, and self-healing capabilities in a Kubernetes cluster.