Business processes and systems are always changing and this includes the digital environment. One of the best ways an organisation can check that its IT systems and operations are always fit for purpose is to conduct regular rightsizing reviews. Larger organisations may consider doing this monthly, though smaller outfits may find quarterly will suffice. The first and most important reason for regularly rightsizing an environment is the potential for significant cost savings that can be made.

What is it?

Rightsizing is a method of measuring and matching workloads to a virtual resource to discover whether it’s necessary to change the provision resource to one that better matches the usage and business needs. The metrics taken into account include CPU usage, memory, network, throughput and disc utilisation.

Steps to efficient rightsizing

Cross-functional approach – Although this may seem to be the sole responsibility of the IT and tech teams in an organisation, the finance team should also be involved. After all, they are the ones receiving the tech bills every month and questioning why the expense is getting higher. A conversation with the tech team will see everyone on the same page as to the needs and usage of the environments. In the early stages, a solutions architect may also be involved, assisting with a holistic view of the business – its requirements and all the different units that comprise the organisation.

Visibility – before embarking on the task, it’s important to find out exactly what is happening in the environment. This can be achieved via a third-party resource, such as VMware’s CloudHealth tool. Starting with predefined thresholds for instance behaviour, observing the environment over a four-week period is best practice, as it provides an accurate rating of what is happening. Less often can be misleading as the metrics may point to a virtual machine with 30 percent utilisation, for example, but a longer period of observation may indicate that this is an anomaly.

Actions – with a clear view of the state of play and understanding of an asset’s core metrics, it’s possible to select the most appropriate response.

  • Upgrade – while this may seem the most unlikely route to take, as an upgrade generally requires additional expense, it may be necessary to ensure that assets need upgrading to be able to meet any new peaks or surges in demand. It also may be true that migrating to a new instance saves money in the long run. AWS continually makes improvements to replace underlying hardware with a more optimised version, which reduces costs for the provider, but also for the customer as the faster processing time translates to quicker and cheaper results.
  • Downgrade – when visibility shows an asset having low utilisation for core metrics, such as 20 percent or less, this means that particular asset is underutilised and a move to a smaller footprint is advisable. Downgrading without negatively impacting a workload can lead to significant savings.
  • Termination – sometimes the rightsizing review identifies ‘zombie resources’, assets running in the cloud environment but seemingly not being used. Perhaps they are a failed script, or have merely been overlooked. Before switching them off, however, it’s vital to check with the business or asset owner. There could be reasons for keeping the asset running that are not immediately apparent.
Use Case

Beatrice Barrero, Cloud Financial Analyst AC3, cites a case study she completed for a large retail organisation that saved the company 30 percent of its infrastructure costs. The process began with discussions of the customer’s concerns and expectations of the rightsizing report. From there, AC3 ran the report, which identified underutilised resources and provided recommendations on both downsizing and upgrading. A consultation with the DevOps team provided further recommendations, all of which were accepted and implemented by the customer. Having visibility into the environment led to a ‘light bulb moment’ says Barrero and proved that the suggested upgrade would actually cut costs significantly. “You could be losing a lot of money and have performance issues because of the lack of rightsizing,” says Barrero. “People overlook it because of the time it takes to implement recommendations, but it’s definitely worth it. The process will be more streamlined, operating more smoothly and faster.”