Which set of techniques is commonly used to optimize cloud costs?

• A. Launching more instances to handle peak load.
• B. Ignore budgets and alerts.
• C. Rightsizing instances, removing idle resources, enabling autoscaling, and using reserved or savings plans.
• D. Keep resources running 24/7 regardless of usage.

Answer: (C)

Optimizing cloud costs comes from matching what you run to what you actually need, eliminating waste, and using cost-saving purchasing options. The best approach combines rightsizing, removing unused or idle resources, turning on autoscaling, and leveraging reserved instances or savings plans. Rightsizing ensures you’re not paying for more CPU, memory, or capacity than your workload requires. Removing idle resources cuts costs by eliminating storage, compute, or services that aren’t contributing to work. Autoscaling adjusts the number of running resources to demand, so you don’t pay for idle capacity during quiet periods or overflow during spikes. Reserved instances or savings plans provide discounted rates in exchange for a commitment to steady usage, which lowers ongoing costs for predictable workloads.

The other options push costs up or waste resources: launching more instances to handle peak load without a dynamic scaling strategy increases spend; ignoring budgets and alerts misses opportunities to curb expenses; and keeping resources running constantly regardless of usage wastes money since idle time still incurs charges.