In today’s fast-paced digital landscape, Kubernetes has emerged as the go-to orchestration platform, revolutionizing the way applications are deployed, scaled, and managed in containerized environments.
As organizations increasingly adopt Kubernetes, with platforms like Amazon’s Elastic Kubernetes Service (EKS) leading the charge, the importance of cost management within these environments has come to the forefront.
It’s quite easy to fall victim to one of the numerous pitfalls that can lead to higher monthly bills, but as administrators and decision-makers within our respective organizations, it’s our duty to identify and steer clear of these hidden traps.
This article delves into these numerous perils associated with EKS and offers insight into how to avoid them.
What Are The Biggest Culprits Of Inefficient Spending In EKS?
1. Underutilized or over-provisioned resources
One of the most common cost traps within EKS is the underutilization and/or over-provisioning of resources assigned to EKS nodes.
When we initially create a non-fargate cluster, we define the instance type that will be created to host the pods that contain our application images, known as containers.
For the inexperienced, it may sound like a good idea to ensure that your nodes have a ‘buffer’ by using an instance type that has more resources than needed, but that will inevitably lead to unnecessary spending without much of a benefit — if our application only needs a certain amount of resources, anything left over will incur needless costs.
While it may sound like choosing smaller instance types would be the way to go, the cost savings by going down that route can be offset by the impact on cluster performance. The key to operating your containerized workloads within cost-optimized resources is balance.
To avoid this issue, there are a few things that can be done to keep this in check:
Cluster Autoscaler or Karpenter
Cluster Autoscaler or Karpenter is a great way to control the provisioning of resources. Both Cluster Autoscaler and Karpenter work by scaling EKS nodes in and out based on available resources within a cluster.
If the kube-scheduler is unable to bring a pod up, both tools can detect this, and add resources into the cluster to help alleviate the burden.
This makes scenarios where clusters are built with smaller instance types more viable, since we can depend on these tools to automate the creation of additional resources when we’re approaching cluster limits.
Limits and requests
Limits and requests are another important factor in optimizing spend. When you set a request within the specification of a pod, you’re telling the Kubernetes scheduler how much of a specific resource (CPU or memory) the pod is guaranteed to have.
The scheduler will use this to determine what node it should place the pod on. A limit, on the other hand, is the total amount of a resource a pod can consume.
If a pod exceeds this limit, it may be evicted, terminated, or not allowed to be scheduled. Limits and requests are a great way to ensure predictable budgeting, enhance cluster autoscaling, and optimize workload performance.
Monitoring tools
Monitoring tools, like CloudWatch, are a good way to get insight into the state of your cluster.
You can use Container Insights to collect metrics and present them to the CloudWatch console, where you can then set alarms based on utilization to ensure that you’re alerted when certain thresholds are crossed.
2. Data transfer and egress costs
Egress and data transfer costs are some of the most misunderstood topics that have deep impacts on bottom lines. These costs are associated with the movement of data in and out of EKS clusters and into other AWS services, the internet, or across AWS regions and availability zones.
Here are some tips on limiting and lowering these costs:
Be aware of what impacts these costs
Additional components, like NAT Gateways, AWS PrivateLink, and AWS Transit Gateway, can all incur additional charges depending on the kind of data that is being transferred.
Understanding the implications of serving traffic externally is also crucial
A pod is exposed to the external world by using a service of either LoadBalancer, ClusterIP, or NodePort.
Misconfigurations, like using the wrong kind of service type or causing traffic to have to communicate across availability zones, can be a costly mistake. Ensure that you’re aware of how your application is configured and the patterns that traffic will follow.
Host in the same pod where possible
As mentioned above, communication between availability zones incurs costs. So in a scenario where you’re aware of the need for two different containers to communicate, identify the feasibility of being able to host both those containers within the same pod, as this guarantees that communication will stay within the same availability zone.
3. Persistent storage costs
Persistent storage is often achieved using Elastic Block Store. Within an EKS cluster, these volumes can be provisioned and attached to EKS EC2 nodes to ensure that data persists beyond pod termination.
While EBS offers durability, scalability, and ease of use, it can also be a significant cost driver if not managed effectively.
Follow these steps to take back control:
Understand how much space you need and the latest generations of volume types
Just like over-provisioning instances, EBS volumes can also be over-provisioned with too much space and unnecessary features.
Ensure that you have a solid understanding of how much space you need, what the latest generation of volume types are available (gp2 vs gp3), and if you really need to define IOPs.
Kubernetes leverages object types called Storage Classes and Persistent Volumes to define how additional volumes are created. Ensure you’re knowledgeable on the available options and annotations you can use to optimize how your storage is created and managed.
Implement an auditing procedure
When resources leveraging EBS volumes are terminated, there are times when their associated EBS volumes may not be removed, especially if data is set to persist.
Ensure that you have an auditing procedure in place to identify when this is occurring and a plan to remove these orphaned volumes.
Utilize automation
If using snapshots for your EBS volumes, use a tool like Amazon Data Lifecycle Manager (DLM) to automate the creation and deletion of EBS snapshots. Define policies that only keep the most recent snapshots and remove anything past a certain date.
How CloudZero Can Help Reduce EKS Spend
Having pinpointed the primary cost determinants in an EKS cluster, we can now find solutions to detect and address these misconfigurations before expenses escalate.
CloudZero is a cloud cost intelligence platform that provides insights and actionable recommendations to optimize cloud spending.
Costs can quickly spiral due to the factors that we spoke about earlier. ClouZero offers a granular view of these costs, breaking them down by cluster, namespace, or even individual pods.
For instance, if an EKS cluster is running oversized EC2 instances, teams can use CloudZero to pinpoint this inefficiency, allowing teams to rightsize nodes based on actual usage. Similarly, if orphaned EBS volumes are driving up costs, CloudZeros detailed explorer and dashboards can help engineering teams find these unused resources.
Through cost anomaly detection, CloudZero can also alert teams to sudden cost spikes, such as unexpected data egress fees.
By providing visibility, actionable insights, and proactive alerts, CloudZero empowers organizations to keep their EKS costs in check to ensure efficient resource utilization. Schedule a demo today!
Conclusion
Navigating the intricate landscape of EKS costs requires a blend of technical acumen and strategic foresight.
As Kubernetes continues to dominate the container orchestration space, understanding the nuances of EKS cost management becomes paramount. From the pitfalls of over-provisioned resources to the intricacies of data transfer costs, being proactive in identifying and mitigating these challenges is essential.
Platforms like CloudZero play a pivotal role in this journey, offering real-time insights and actionable recommendations to ensure that organizations extract maximum value from their EKS investments.
As we wrap up this exploration into EKS cost traps, it’s clear that with the right strategies and solutions in place, organizations can strike a balance between performance and cost, ensuring a seamless and cost-effective Kubernetes experience.
The Cloud Cost Playbook
The step-by-step guide to cost maturity
