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Use Case for AWS EC2 Idle Instance Detection

  1. Configure AWS EC2 Idle Instance Detection
  2. Use Case for AWS EC2 Idle Instance Detection
  3. Triage Guides by Violation Type
    1. Triage AWS EC2 Idle Instance Detection CPU_UTILIZATION_LOW
    2. Triage AWS EC2 Idle Instance Detection MEMORY_UTILIZATION_LOW

When running infrastructure in the cloud, it's crucial to monitor resource usage to optimize costs and efficiency. The AWS EC2 Instance Idle Detection policy helps identify EC2 instances with very low utilization, suggesting they might be underused or forgotten. An instance may be considered 'idle' when both CPU and memory utilization are close to zero, indicating minimal to no workload being processed.

Pros:

  • Identifying idle instances can significantly reduce costs from unnecessary charges.
  • Improves the overall efficiency and maintenance of cloud resources.
  • Aids in decluttering the environment by spotting and dealing with unused instances.

Cons:

  • Sometimes, low usage might be expected due to the nature of the instance's role, so alerts might need to be fine-tuned to avoid false positives.
  • May require additional context or logging to avoid misinterpretation of the data.

How it works: This policy uses AWS CloudWatch to retrieve both CPU and memory utilization metrics, providing a snapshot of an instance's usage. If an instance consistently shows low metrics over time, it's flagged as idle. This policy tracks the cpuUtilization and memoryUtilization metrics specifically.

The policy distinguishes violation types by setting thresholds for CPU and memory utilization, typically defaulting to around 5%. Violations are assigned accordingly as CPU_UTILIZATION_LOW and MEMORY_UTILIZATION_LOW indicating which resource is underutilized.