Quiz: FinOps

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3 questions

L1 (2 questions)

1. In Kubernetes, what is the single biggest cost optimization opportunity, and why?

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The request/limit gap. You pay for requested resources, not actual usage. If a container requests 500m CPU but only uses 100m, you are paying for 400m of idle capacity. Right-sizing requests to match actual usage (using VPA recommendations) is the highest-impact cost optimization because it directly reduces the compute you are billed for across every pod.

2. What are the three phases of the FinOps framework?

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Inform, Optimize, Operate. Inform means gaining visibility into who spends what and why (cost allocation, tagging, dashboards). Optimize means right-sizing resources, using committed-use discounts, and eliminating waste. Operate means continuous governance through budgets, alerts, and policies that prevent cost regression.

L2 (1 questions)

1. What workloads are safe to run on spot/preemptible instances, and what workloads are not?

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Safe for spot: stateless web apps behind Deployments with multiple replicas, retryable batch jobs, dev/staging environments, and CI/CD runners. Not safe: single-replica databases, stateful workloads without graceful shutdown, and long-running jobs that cannot checkpoint. Spot instances cost 60-90% less but can be reclaimed with 2-minute notice.