RIGHT-SIZING VIRTUAL MACHINES: PRECISION OPTIMIZATION FOR MODERN IT

In today鈥檚 rapidly evolving cloud and data center landscape, organizations face mounting pressure to optimize their infrastructure鈥攂oth in terms of cost and performance. One of the most impactful and underutilized strategies available to IT leaders is virtual machine (VM) right-sizing. Whether you鈥檙e operating in a public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid environment, right-sizing offers a clear path to reduce spend, increase efficiency, and improve resource governance.
At 91传媒, we help enterprises move beyond guesswork by embedding right-sizing into a broader FinOps and CloudOps strategy鈥攅nsuring your infrastructure is not just functional, but financially intelligent.
What Is Right-Sizing?
Right-sizing is the practice of adjusting a VM鈥檚 allocated resources (CPU, memory, and storage) to align with actual workload demand. The goal is to provision just enough to meet performance requirements without waste. It is not about cutting resources indiscriminately鈥攊t鈥檚 about smart allocation based on data.
Why It Matters
Cost Efficiency: Right-sizing can yield savings of 20% to 50% or more on compute spend, especially in environments with long-standing, oversized workloads. Overprovisioned VMs quietly drain budgets, while right-sized infrastructure aligns your costs with actual usage.
Performance Integrity: Contrary to common concern, right-sizing often improves performance by eliminating noisy neighbors, reducing contention, and tightening operational focus. It also brings predictability to your resource planning.
Environmental Impact: Lean infrastructure reduces unnecessary energy consumption. Right-sizing supports sustainability goals by optimizing resource usage across your environments.
Low-Risk, High-Control
Right-sizing isn鈥檛 a disruptive re-architecture鈥攊t鈥檚 a precise tuning of existing infrastructure.
When properly planned:
- Changes are non-invasive
- Rollback is straightforward
- Downtime is minimal (typically limited to a restart)
91传媒 works with client teams to ensure every change is tracked, validated, and governed through change control policies, Infrastructure as Code (IaC) integration, and post-change monitoring.
Data-Driven, Not Reactive
Effective right-sizing begins with telemetry. We work with clients to:
- Analyze historical usage trends across compute, memory, and disk
- Establish performance baselines
- Build out SKU/instance size alternatives that balance savings and performance
91传媒 then creates a tiered recommendation model (e.g., conservative, moderate, aggressive) based on workload criticality and business context.
Collaborative Execution
At 91传媒, we don鈥檛 just provide insights鈥攚e partner with your teams to operationalize them. Our approach includes:
- Stakeholder Alignment: Collaborating with FinOps, infrastructure, and application teams
- Execution Planning: Considering production versus non-production priorities
- Change Integration: Working within existing tools and IaC frameworks
- Post-change Validation: Measuring results and enabling rollback when needed
This ensures your team stays in control while maximizing the value of every change.
Transparency & Accountability
Right-sizing is only valuable when it鈥檚 measurable and visible. We help organizations implement tracking dashboards and reporting structures that tie optimization efforts directly to:
- Monthly and annual cost savings
- Improved resource utilization metrics
- VM inventory reduction or rebalancing
- Strategic goals (e.g., carbon footprint, compliance)
Stacking Right-Sizing with Reservations for Maximum Savings
While right-sizing alone delivers significant cost benefits by eliminating overprovisioned resources, organizations can amplify their savings even further by combining right-sizing with long-term compute reservations.
Once workloads have been right-sized and their resource requirements are better understood, it becomes far easier to confidently commit to Reserved Instances (RIs) or Savings Plans in public cloud platforms like AWS, Azure, or GCP.
Reservations provide a substantial discount鈥攐ften ranging from 30% to 70%鈥攊n exchange for committing to a specific instance type and region over a fixed term.
There are typically two common reservation durations:
- 1-Year Reservation: Offers moderate savings and flexibility 鈥 ideal for workloads with predictable short- to medium-term usage.
- 3-Year Reservation: Provides the highest discount 鈥 best suited for stable, long-running workloads that are unlikely to change.
By first right-sizing to the appropriate VM size and then applying reservations, organizations ensure they鈥檙e not locking in excess capacity. This sequence鈥攐ptimize first, commit second鈥攊s a best practice in cloud financial management.
At 91传媒, we help clients build reservation strategies informed by rightsizing data and workload stability, ensuring maximum return on commitment.
The 91传媒 Advantage
Our right-sizing engagements go beyond point-in-time tuning. We help clients build a repeatable right-sizing motion that鈥檚 aligned to business cadence, change cycles, and long-term cloud economics.
Our secret? A combination of FinOps expertise, technical execution maturity, and a relentless focus on outcomes.
Get Started
If you鈥檙e ready to eliminate waste, improve workload alignment, and unlock real infrastructure savings鈥攚ithout compromising performance鈥91传媒 is ready to help.
Let鈥檚 make your infrastructure smarter, leaner, and more cost-effective.
Contact 91传媒 to discuss your right-sizing strategy.
About the author
Patrick R. Warnke
Technical Team Lead, Cloud Managed Services
Patrick R. Warnke is a Technical Team Lead at 91传媒 Managed Services, specializing in Cloud, DevOps, and FinOps. With expertise in AWS, Azure, and Harness (CI/CD & CCM), he optimizes cloud infrastructure, automation, and financial efficiency. His leadership drives innovation, security, and operational excellence in dynamic environments.