How can I optimize cloud costs by right-sizing Kubernetes resource requests and limits?

All answers to this question.

The safest way to right-size is to use the Vertical Pod Autoscaler (VPA) in "Recommender" mode. It will observe your actual usage over time and suggest values without actually restarting your pods. You can also use open-source tools like Goldilocks or Kubecost to visualize the gap between what you've requested and what you're actually consuming. Generally, your "Requests" should be based on the average usage, while "Limits" should be set to the 95th percentile of your burst peaks to prevent a single pod from hogging the entire node’s resources.

   Answered 2025-01-12 by Barbara Davis

Have you considered using Spot Instances for your non-critical worker nodes? This can reduce costs by up to 70-90% regardless of your resource settings.

   Answered 2025-01-13 by William Wilson

• Spot instances are great for dev/staging, William, but for production, you need to be careful. You must implement Pod Disruption Budgets (PDBs) and ensure your application handles graceful shutdowns. If the spot capacity is reclaimed, your pods need to move quickly. Combining spot instances with right-sizing via VPA is the ultimate strategy for a lean, cost-efficient Kubernetes infrastructure.

     Commented 2025-01-14 by Christopher Lee

Don't forget the Horizontal Pod Autoscaler (HPA). It's better to have many small pods that scale up during traffic spikes than a few massive, over-provisioned pods.

   Answered 2025-01-15 by Jennifer Clark

• Exactly, Jennifer. Using HPA based on custom metrics like request-per-second often yields better cost-efficiency than just scaling on basic CPU/RAM metrics alone.

     Commented 2025-01-16 by Barbara Davis