Cockroach Labs Estate economics What idle nodes, provisioned bytes and peak-sized bills cost, worked out from your estate.
  1. Nodes 13 down from 30
  2. Avg CPU utilization 34.6% up from 15.0%
  3. Storage provisioned 600 GB 100 GB of data
  4. Est. monthly saving 57% $1,000/m becomes $430/m

Step 1 of 8 - Virtualization

You're running an estate, not a cluster

Every cluster below was sized for its own peak, so every one of them idles.

Deployment model
Separate clusters One Private Host Cluster
1 private host cluster, 10 virtual clustersPrivate Host cluster13 nodes on average, 17 at peakvc-01own connection stringvc-02own connection stringvc-03own connection stringvc-04own connection stringvc-05own connection stringvc-06own connection stringvc-07own connection stringvc-08own connection stringvc-09own connection stringvc-10own connection stringShared, auto-scaled node pool13 of 17 nodes at peakEstate after consolidationOne private host cluster carrying 10 virtual clusters on 13 nodes on average and 17 at peak, averaging 34.6% CPU utilization.
35%Average CPUAverage CPU CPU utilization34.6% of provisioned CPU is in use.

13 nodes running 36 vCPU of actual work.

Pooled and sized once for the peak, 17 nodes would average 26.5%. Auto-scaling brings it to 13 nodes at 34.6%, moving between 25.8% and 40.2% across the day against a 38% setpoint.

The arithmetic, in full
StepWorkingResult
Provisioned today10 clusters of 3 nodes each, 30 in total x 8 vCPU240 vCPU
Mean demand240 vCPU x 15.0% estate average utilization (per-cluster 6.2% to 24.8%, sd 5.2%)36 vCPU
Aggregate peak36.0 vCPU x (1 + (2.23 - 1) / sqrt(10)), a pooled peak-to-mean of 1.38850 vCPU
Consolidated, sized once for the peakmax(3, ceil(50.0 vCPU / (8 vCPU x 37.5% target))) = max(3, ceil(16.66)); the mean sits well under that peak17 nodes, averaging 26.5%
Auto-scaled through the daythe pool follows the pooled curve in whole nodes, 30 minutes behind it, holding its size for 2 hours before shrinking13 nodes on average, at 34.6% CPU
Utilization across the day25.8% to 40.2% against a 37.5% setpoint: the pool runs hot while it's a bucket behind a rise, and cool while the cooldown is still holding capacity after a peak25.8%-40.2%

Assumptions

  • 8 vCPU per node. Standalone clusters are drawn around 3 nodes, snapped to an odd number for quorum and held between 3 and 15; in this estate they're all 3, because a spread centred on the end of that range has nowhere to go, for 30 nodes in total.
  • Each standalone cluster's CPU is a draw from a normal distribution centred on 15.0% and held between 0% and 100%; in this estate they run 6.2% to 24.8%, a 5.2-point standard deviation. The published band is 10-15% today against a 30-45% auto-scaled target, and this Private Host Cluster is set to 37.5%.
  • The Private Host Cluster floors at 3 nodes and must reach 17 at peak.
  • The auto-scaler sizes for what it saw 30 minutes ago and waits 2 hours before shrinking, so the pool averages 34.6% rather than sitting on its 37.5% setpoint.
  • Workloads are independent; consolidation moves where work runs, not how much there is.
What a virtual cluster gives an app team

Its own connection string, databases, schemas, users, roles and backups, and no visibility into the Private Host Cluster or any other virtual cluster.