Starting from Docker Machine Deprecation: 7 Production Decisions for GitLab CI Runner Elastic Architecture and Cache Governance
Overview 1 AM. You get an alert: GitLab CI pipeline queue has 47 pending jobs. The dev chat explodes—“code pushed 40 minutes ago, still not running"“is the Runner down?““just add more machines!” You check the console: all 3 Runners are at capacity, each running 10 concurrent jobs, 30 slots fully occupied. Add machines? Docker Machine executor needs 3 minutes to spin up a new EC2, then another 2 minutes to become Ready....