How to Optimize Your Kubernetes Costs
Kubernetes is one of the major cost drivers within the cloud. In this edition we'll focus on how to reduce them.
Victor Garcia
November 17, 2024
In partnership with
Just before the FinOps XE happening in Barcelona (Looking forward to seeing you there!), FOCUS got an update that is extremely important
What also happened this week:
Karpenter vs Cluster Autoscaler
KPI Detailed Guide
Rightsizing Masterclass
Mention of Honour: FinOps XE Recap Newsletter & Event
Quick Wins with Kubernetes info + interesting updates.
Professional Spotlight with a Spanish FinOps Entrepreneur
Everyone is preparing for what’s going to come on FinOps XE.
Action Items: Read today’s newsletter, and mark in your calendar Tuesday and Thursday for our Special Newsletter and Recap
Kubernetes
How to Optimize Costs in Your Kubernetes Cluster
Karpenter and the Cluster Autoscaler (CAS) are two tools for managing node scaling in Kubernetes clusters. This is a core feature to handle in your cluster to control your costs. Scaling to the moon might be the major cause of your business to go bankrupt. Here are the main differences:
Cluster Autoscaler
Uses autoscaling groups
Assumes nodes in a group are the same
Can be complex for large clusters
May lead to inefficient resource use
Karpenter
Avoids a one-size-fits-all approach
Allows for more precise node provisioning
Reduces wasted resources through advanced techniques
Offers faster node startup and better support for spot instances
Key advantages of Karpenter: More flexibility for different workloads. Better at consolidating resources. Strong support for spot instances with fallback options
Challenges with Karpenter: Only works with AWS and Azure currently. Requires accurate pod resource specifications
Both tools have their place, but Karpenter offers more efficient and cost-effective scaling for modern Kubernetes environments.
In partnership with FinOut
Cloud Cost Chaos: How Savings Turn Into Showback Nightmares
As cloud environments expand, managing costs becomes even more challenging, with savings both a solution and a problem.
AWS’s Reserved Instances, Spot Instances, and Savings Plans aim to simplify optimization but often complicate cost control.
One major hurdle? Showback. It’s about allocating costs transparently to the right teams, but with AWS applying discounts inconsistently, costs get misaligned, savings are missed, and billing becomes unpredictable.
In my latest article, we'll dive into the key issues FinOps teams face with AWS showback—misaligned discounts, manual adjustments, and more.
Cloud Migration
Cloud Migration Costs Deep Dive
Cloud migration costs often exceed budgets, even for experienced teams. Moving to the cloud requires significant upfront investment. However, cloud service providers often offer financial help to speed up migrations. It's important to work with your provider to understand all funding options available.
Careful planning is crucial. Focus on the main things that drive costs, like computing power and data storage. Early choices can affect long-term costs. Starting with on-demand pricing is safer, but committed pricing can save money later. Choosing between a quick move or improving systems can impact costs differently.
By understanding these factors and planning carefully, companies can better control their cloud migration costs and set themselves up for long-term success.
KPIs
EVM KPI to boost Cost Management Efficiency
Earned Value Management (EVM) is a technique from project management that can be adapted for FinOps cloud cost management. It helps track and forecast cloud costs to align spending with business goals. EVM looks at three key components:
Planned Value (PV) - The budgeted cost for cloud resources over a year
Earned Value (EV) - The actual value of cloud services consumed
Actual Cost (AC) - The real cloud spending
Using these, you can calculate metrics like the Cost Performance Index (CPI) to see if cloud spending is on track. CPI = EV / AC
This approach gives a more complete picture of cloud cost efficiency than just looking at spending versus budget. It ties costs directly to business value. EVM requires good data and mature FinOps processes. However, it can be a powerful tool for cloud financial management as organizations advance their FinOps practices.
Rightsizing
Rightsizing: Show, Don’t Tell
Google recently launched a feature to automatically power down unused development resources. This reduced compute usage by about 30% for certain virtual machines. The company was also launching a new product line at the same time. This created competing priorities, so they delayed making changes to their compute capacity.
The author created a new way to show resource usage using heatmaps. These visuals clearly showed where there was extra capacity that could be removed. This approach made it easy for the engineering teams to see where they could safely reduce capacity. It led to significant cloud cost savings.
FinOps requires strong data and visualization skills to be most effective. Showing teams clear data is more powerful than just talking about the need to reduce costs.
Together with Turbo360
Overcoming ACM Limitations: Smarter Cloud Cost Management (Whitepaper)
Managing cloud costs can be unpredictable, challenging, and expensive, making traditional methods fall short.
Azure Cost Management (ACM) offers tools like calculators and Azure Advisor but lacks the user-friendliness and flexibility needed for true cost optimization.
But wait, this whitepaper has all the answers you need:
The limitations of ACM in managing cloud costs
Why a third-party solution is essential for better visibility
How Turbo360’s user-centric approach simplifies cost management
Key areas where Turbo360 drives the most value, empowering teams to reduce expenses effectively
🎖️ Mention of Honour
FinOps XE Recap Newsletter & Event
Now that FinOps XE Ended, we have to summarize it. And that’s what we are going to do. Mark the following dates in your calendar:
19th of November (this Tuesday)
Special Edition of FinOps Weekly with all the content available from FinOps XE at 7:07 AM CEST Time
21st of November (this Thursday)
FinOps XE Event with some of the Spanish Members that were at the event (Panel in Spanish + a special collaboration session (in English with Subtitles). 6:30 PM CEST Time
Tons of content to share there, and interesting conversations to happen. Really looking forward to your attendance.
🏆 Quick Wins
Announcements
Broadcom's acquisition of VMware is going well, despite negative press coverage about price increases and customer migrations.
Articles & Podcasts
GreenOps: Infusing sustainability into DevOps to shape a greener digital future
Professional Spotlight
Jose Ernesto Suarez
It was great to meet Ernesto at FinOps XE! We had several interesting conversations, and I’m a huge fan of his project. We can be very proud of having a Spanish member of the community disrupting FinOps!
That’s all for this week. See you next Sunday!
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