Question

Your team runs a production API on Compute Engine that maintains a steady baseline of 40 n2-standard-8 instances 24/7, with occasional short bursts to 55 instances during business hours. Finance asks you to reduce compute spend without risking availability of the baseline capacity. The workload has been stable for over a year and is expected to continue at this level. Which approach optimizes cost while preserving reliability?

Accepted Answer

Purchase a 3-year resource-based committed use discount (CUD) covering the vCPU and memory equivalent of the 40-instance baseline, and serve the bursts with on-demand instances.

Answer

Migrate the entire fleet, including the baseline, to Spot VMs to obtain the deepest possible discount on all 55 instances.

Answer

Purchase a 3-year committed use discount sized for the full 55-instance peak so all capacity is discounted.

Answer

Rely solely on sustained use discounts (SUDs) applied automatically to all running instances and take no further action.