EKS Underutilised Node Group
Nodes bill as EC2 instances whatever the pods on them request, so a group running well below its allocatable capacity pays for the remainder.
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AWSKubernetes
Found, explained, fixed.
Findings with a dollar figure attached, idle, oversized, orphaned, unscheduled and undiscounted spend.
Detect
ZopNight checks this automatically across AWS, with read-only access to the account.
Explain
Every finding says exactly what to change: Rightsize the underutilised EKS node group. Where the saving can be proven it is priced; where it cannot, the finding says so.
Fix
After a guided review, where you confirm the change, ZopNight resizes it to the recommended tier, then checks the change took.
- Applies to
- EKS Node Groups on AWS
- The fix, by hand
- kubectl get pods --field-selector spec.nodeName=‹name›. Confirm only DaemonSet pods are present.
- kubectl cordon ‹name›. Block new scheduling.
- kubectl drain ‹name› --ignore-daemonsets --delete-emptydir-data --grace-period=60.
- Reduce the underlying node group's desired count (EKS Console → Node Group → Edit) so the node is not replaced.
- If Cluster Autoscaler / Karpenter is configured, they may handle consolidation automatically. Verify before manual scale-down.
ZopNight does this for you after a guided review.
- Category
- Rightsizing. Resources sized for headroom they never use. A smaller size runs the same workload for less.
- Where it appears
- The Savings tab of Recommendations, with every affected resource listed.
- Rule ID
RC-042- Full reference
Related checks
See the oversized resources in your account.
Connect a read-only role and the first pass runs on your own estate. This check, and the rest of the catalogue, with it.
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- $30M+annualised cloud spend under management
- 550K+resources tracked since launch
- 20-60%off the bill in the first month
- SOC 2Type II report, plus ISO 27001
Figures published on zop.dev.