All terms

Glossary

Rightsizing

Bringing resources down to the size actually needed, rather than the one chosen when they were created.

Most environments are generously sized, because nobody knew what would be needed at creation time and nobody looked afterwards. Rightsizing compares allocated against used capacity over a longer window.

The basis is measurement across at least two weeks, including peaks and month-end. An average alone is misleading.

How you notice it

  • Instance sizes date from the initial install and were never reviewed.
  • Average CPU utilization sits below 20 percent.
  • Test and staging environments run at production size.

Frequently asked

How long should I measure before downsizing?

At least two weeks, better a full month, so that month-end and weekly rhythm are included. What matters is not the average but the 95th percentile: downsize by average and you miss the peaks, and you find out on the first campaign day.

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