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Why does Kubernetes use a watch mechanism instead of continuous polling for state changes?

Expert Kubernetes
Quick Answer Polling would require each component to ask the API server "any changes?" every N seconds รขโ‚ฌโ€ generating massive load and adding latency proportional to the poll interval. Watches are long-lived HTTP connections where the API server pushes events to clients instantly when objects change. Much lower API server load and near-real-time response to state changes.

Answer

Watch streams push revision-based updates efficiently; polling overloads API server and causes stale reads.
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