Dynamic Kubernetes request right sizing with Kubecost

Dynamic Kubernetes request right sizing with Kubecost What are container requests? Kubecost savings insights Customizing recommendations Acting on Kubecost recommendations One-time resizing Scheduled right sizing Automating resizing with Helm Conclusion About the authors This post was co-written with Kai Wombacher, Founding Product Manager at Kubecost. In this post we show you how to use the Kubecost Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service (Amazon EKS) add-on to lower infrastructure costs and boost Kubernetes efficiency. The Container Request Right Sizing feature allows you to find how container requests are configured, look for inefficiencies, and fix them either manually or through automated remediation. Specifically, we cover how to review Kubecost’s right sizing recommendations and take action on them using one-time updates or scheduled, automated resizing within your Amazon EKS environment to continuously optimize resource usage. Over-requested containers are one of the most common sources of cloud resource waste in Kubernetes environments. Without visibility and automation, development teams can request far more resources than their applications use, which leads to overprovisioned nodes and higher costs. In Kubernetes, a container request is a declared amount of CPU and memory that a workload needs. It plays a crucial role in how workloads are scheduled and how nodes are used. When a container specifies a CPU or memory request, the scheduler looks for a node that has at least that amount of unallocated capacity. When a pod is placed on a node, the requested resources are essentially reserved, regardless of whether the container uses them in practice. Although this reservation behavior makes sure that workloads have access to the resources they need, it can also lead to inefficient resource usage if requests are set too high. For example, if a container requests 1 CPU but only uses 200 millicores (0.2 CPU), then that added 0.8 CPU goes unused, yet the node capacity is still reserved and charged for.