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EKS and GKE cost versus reliability checklist

Review cost changes together with workload reliability. A smaller request or node pool is useful only when the application still meets its operating requirements.

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ARCO engineering · Updated

What to record

Workload baseline

Identify the workload owner, critical user journey, demand cycle, latency/error objectives, resource requests and observed usage.

Scheduling and capacity

Review replicas, zones, node placement, capacity headroom, autoscaler constraints and disruption budgets against the agreed availability design.

Change and rollback

Record the proposed resource change, representative load test, acceptance threshold, rollback signal and authorized implementer.

Operational evidence

Record dashboard and test references, recovery exercises, validated billing impact and an owner for the next review.

How to use the template

  1. Start with a representative demand cycle, not a single quiet-hour utilization screenshot.
  2. Separate workload efficiency from shared node capacity and unrelated billing charges.
  3. Test one controlled change in a representative environment with application owners.
  4. Validate pending pods, restarts, latency and errors before accepting cost improvements.
  5. Recheck behavior during scale-out, node replacement and a recovery exercise.

A disruption budget controls voluntary disruptions; it does not guarantee availability during every failure. This checklist does not prescribe a universal CPU request or utilization target.

Kubernetes disruption budgets and limitations; GKE cost allocation.

CSV field reference

A header-only file: fill it with your approved evidence and decisions. No client records or example savings are embedded.

  • workload_alias
  • cloud
  • cluster_alias
  • owner
  • user_journey
  • demand_window
  • latency_objective
  • error_objective
  • requests_baseline
  • usage_evidence
  • replicas_and_zones
  • autoscaling_constraints
  • disruption_budget_review
  • proposed_change
  • load_test_reference
  • acceptance_threshold
  • rollback_trigger
  • approval_reference
  • result_reference
  • next_review
  • status

Worked engineering guides

Reference or share this resource

Use this reference in a report or discussion. It includes the resource’s title, update date and permanent page URL.

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