--- tags: - devops - l1 - flashcard-deck - finops --- [Portal](../../../../library/portal/index.md) | **Level:** [L1: Foundations](../../../../library/portal/levels.md) | **Topics:** [FinOps](../../../../library/portal/topics.md) | **Domain:** DevOps & Tooling id category difficulty tags question answer source_path finops/31fd879db012 finops easy finops, framework, cloud What are the three phases of the FinOps framework? Inform (visibility into who spends what and why), Optimize (right-size, use commitments, eliminate waste), and Operate (continuous governance, budgets, alerts).\n\nName origin: FinOps = Financial Operations, formalized by the FinOps Foundation (Linux Foundation project) in 2019.\n\nRef: https://www.finops.org/framework/ training/library/topics/finops/primer.md finops/5e776e05775a finops easy finops, kubernetes, cost What is the single biggest cost optimization opportunity in Kubernetes? The request/limit gap. You pay for resource requests, not actual usage. If a pod requests 500m CPU but only uses 100m, you are paying for 400m of idle resources.\n\nExample: 100 pods each requesting 500m CPU but using 100m wastes 40 cores — 5-10 nodes of idle paid capacity.\n\nGotcha: setting requests too low causes OOMKills and scheduling failures. Use VPA recommendations, not raw usage minimums. training/library/topics/finops/primer.md finops/58224c81991d finops easy finops, spot, savings What are spot/preemptible instances and how much can they save? Spot instances cost 60-90% less than on-demand pricing but can be reclaimed by the cloud provider with 2-minute notice. They are safe for stateless web apps, batch jobs, dev/staging environments, and CI/CD runners. training/library/topics/finops/primer.md finops/f5c291b29d26 finops medium finops, vpa, right-sizing Describe the right-sizing process using VPA (Vertical Pod Autoscaler). 1. Deploy VPA in "Off" (recommendation-only) mode. \n2. Collect 7 days of usage data. \n3. Set requests to VPA's "target" recommendation. \n4. Set limits to 2-3x the request (or remove CPU limits for bursty workloads). \n5. Monitor for OOMKills or throttling. \n6. Repeat quarterly. training/library/topics/finops/primer.md finops/0fc8decd150f finops medium finops, spot, safety What workloads are safe and unsafe for spot instances? Safe: stateless web apps with multiple replicas, retryable batch jobs, dev/staging environments, CI/CD runners. Unsafe: single-replica databases, stateful workloads without graceful shutdown, long-running jobs that cannot checkpoint.\n\nRemember: SAFE for spot = Stateless, Auto-scaling, Fault-tolerant, Ephemeral. SAFE mnemonic.\n\nGotcha: Even safe workloads need graceful shutdown handling — use SIGTERM handlers and preStop hooks. training/library/topics/finops/primer.md finops/c68029fff793 finops medium finops, network, cost How does cross-AZ traffic drive cloud costs and how can you reduce it? In AWS, cross-AZ traffic costs $0.01/GB each way. Reduce by enabling topology-aware routing (service.kubernetes.io/topology-mode: Auto) to prefer same-zone backends, using VPC endpoints for AWS services, and pulling container images from ECR in the same region. training/library/topics/finops/primer.md finops/503130ef4e70 finops medium finops, storage, optimization How do you find and eliminate wasted storage in Kubernetes? Find unbound PVCs with kubectl get pvc -A | grep -v Bound. Find PVCs not mounted by any pod by comparing PVC names to pod volume claims. Use tiered storage: SSD for databases, HDD for logs and archives, object storage (S3/GCS) for long-term backups. training/library/topics/finops/primer.md finops/b087d4394ae6 finops hard finops, karpenter, autoscaling How does Karpenter differ from Cluster Autoscaler and what makes it more cost-effective? Karpenter provisions individual nodes based on pod requirements rather than scaling pre-defined node groups. It can mix spot and on-demand, select from multiple instance types, consolidate underutilized nodes (consolidationPolicy: WhenUnderutilized), and auto-expire nodes for freshness. This leads to better bin-packing and lower waste. training/library/topics/finops/primer.md finops/c3705734339c finops hard finops, pdb, spot How do Pod Disruption Budgets protect applications on spot instances? A PodDisruptionBudget (PDB) sets minAvailable or maxUnavailable constraints. When spot nodes are reclaimed, Kubernetes respects PDBs during eviction, ensuring at least the specified number of pods remain running. This prevents too many replicas from being evicted simultaneously during spot reclamation events. training/library/topics/finops/primer.md finops/3912c46d7be8 finops hard finops, tools, visibility Name five cost visibility tools and their primary use cases. Kubecost (open source, per-namespace/pod cost allocation), OpenCost (CNCF project, standardized cost monitoring), CloudHealth (SaaS, multi-cloud enterprise), AWS Cost Explorer (native AWS analysis), GCP Billing (native GCP analysis). Use Kubecost/OpenCost for Kubernetes-specific cost attribution and cloud-native tools for provider-level analysis. training/library/topics/finops/primer.md --- ## Wiki Navigation ### Related Content - [FinOps & Cost Optimization](../../../../library/topics/finops/index.md) (Topic Pack, L2) — FinOps - [FinOps Drills](../../../../library/drills/finops_drills.md) (Drill, L2) — FinOps - [Interview: Cost Spike Investigation](../../../../library/interview-scenarios/20-cost-spike-investigation.md) (Scenario, L2) — FinOps - [Skillcheck: FinOps](../../../../library/skillchecks/finops.skillcheck.md) (Assessment, L2) — FinOps