coredns_request_count

High ndots setting (default 5) causes excessive DNS queries as each name is tried with all search domains before FQDN lookup, leading to DNS cache stampede and intermittent failures during pod scaling events.

Multiple CoreDNS pods scheduled on the same node create single points of failure and uneven query load distribution, reducing reliability and causing localized performance issues.

Overly restrictive NetworkPolicies prevent pods from reaching CoreDNS service, causing 'connection refused' or timeout errors that appear as application-level DNS failures rather than network issues.