Tech Tip #21: Find and remove zombie resources

That instance at 3% CPU has been running for a year.

Video created by explainapaper.com

The problem

Test environments, forgotten VMs, orphaned volumes and pods from finished projects keep running because nobody owns them. They rarely show up in performance reviews, only on the bill.

The fix you can use today

  • List everything with sustained low CPU and network use (the Constitution uses under 10% CPU and under 5 MB/s network).
  • Tag every resource with an owner and an expiry date.
  • Delete, or schedule to stop out of hours, what nobody claims.

Tools that help

  • GreenCode Constitution skill (GreenCode researchers): open-source energy principles and a catalogue of 37 energy anti-patterns that an AI coding agent can follow to find and fix waste like this
  • Cloud Carbon Footprint: estimates the energy and emissions of AWS, Azure and Google Cloud usage from billing and usage data
  • Kepler: exports energy estimates per pod and container on Kubernetes, using eBPF and hardware counters

How GreenCode helps

GreenCode helps tackle this by mapping a running estate and the energy each service uses. It shows which services run hot and which barely run at all. More on this.

Tags

#idle#cloud#cost

Sources

Transcript

That server at three percent busy has been running for a year. Test systems, forgotten servers, old disks and leftover containers keep running. Often, the project they served finished long ago. Nobody owns them, so nobody turns them off. They rarely show up in performance reviews. Only on the bill. They use energy and money, and produce nothing. Here is the fix you can use today. List everything with low processor and network use, over a long time. One rule: under ten percent processor, and under five megabytes a second of network. Tag every resource with an owner and an expiry date. Delete what nobody claims, or stop it out of hours. The Green Software Foundation suggests removing unused assets. GreenCode takes this into account. GreenCode's Constitution skill can help an AI coding agent spot idle resources. Then check their energy and emissions, using tools like Cloud Carbon Footprint and Kepler. GreenCode helps tackle this by mapping your running systems and the energy each one uses. It shows which services run hot, and which barely run at all. That was GreenCode Tech Tip number twenty-one. Follow for the next tip, and find more on greencode.ai/tech-tips.

All GreenCode Tech Tips · All GreenCode videos

  • Tip #21
  • For Ops and infrastructure
  • Length 1:16
  • Category Cloud and infrastructure
GreenCode

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