Taints and Tolerations

Node affinity is a property of Pods that attracts them to a set of nodes (either as a preference or a hard requirement). Taints are the opposite -- they allow a node to repel a set of pods. Tolerations are applied to pods. Tolerations allow the scheduler to schedule pods with matching taints. Tolerations allow scheduling but don't guarantee scheduling: the scheduler also evaluates other parameters as part of its function.