AWS has a diverse list of instance types. From general-purpose servers to others more suitable for CPU- or memory-intensive workloads, of various sizes. I/O performance is also a variable.  Without extensive application benchmarks, it’s a challenge to pick the most suitable instance type a priori. Frequently, users find themselves with instances that are too big for their needs, and pricier.

Moving workloads to smaller and cheaper machines isn’t always possible, sometimes there’s just no alternative that provide the right capacity at a lower price, but in the absence of application specific benchmarks, tracking resource utilization and making trade-offs more frequently will help to optimize the capacity-utilization-cost equations.

Check out the related Cloud Insights:

Oversized Servers Found (IO)

Compute Footprint Utilization (Idle)

Keywords: aws instance types, aws instance sizes.