IBM Kubecost 3.1: Kubernetes Resource Quota Rightsizing

We’re proud to kick off the new year by announcing IBM Kubecost 3.1! This release builds on IBM Kubecost 3.0 and introduces Kubernetes Resource Quota Rightsizing.

What’s New in 3.1: Kubernetes Resource Quota Rightsizing

In this release, we’ve continued our journey of bringing insights and proactive cost savings opportunities to the Kubernetes space. IBM Kubecost 3.1 adds a new page into the Savings Insights suite to identify and right-size Resource Quotas. You can also apply these recommendations right away, including creating a new Resource Quota from scratch.

Quick Refresher: What Resource Quotas Do

Resource Quotas are a Kubernetes policy construct that let cluster administrators set hard limits on total resource usage within a namespace, typically CPU and memory. Teams use quotas to set guardrails before workloads scale or new workloads land. From a cost perspective, right-sizing quotas helps prevent runaway usage and can reduce oversizing across namespaces over time. Operationally, Resource Quotas are a type of admission controller and do require an understanding of how they can impact workloads. So, we recommend planning and rolling out quotas carefully, since they can impact workload behavior.

Walkthrough: Right-Size Quotas from Insights Card to Apply

Savings Insights Card

When navigating to the Savings Insights page, you will see a new “Right size resource quotas” card. Open the card to review quota recommendations.

Review Recommendations

You’ll see recommendations across your Kubecost environment, including namespaces containing Resource Quotas and those without. This view helps you spot quotas to optimize, and areas where you may want to begin applying guardrails.

Customize the Recommendation

Profiles and time window give you the power and flexibility to determine how to size and resize Resource Quotas. In this release, Kubecost considers CPU and memory requests and limits to build recommendations. Convenient, out-of-the-box profiles make it quick and easy to size for common cases such as production, development, and high availability.

Apply with Guardrails

With your options set, you can both see and, most importantly, automate the application of the rightsizing results directly from the UI while viewing your possible savings.

Enable Actions

Actions are disabled by default. You can enable them via Helm when you are ready to apply recommendations from the UI.

Getting Started with 3.1

IBM Kubecost 3.1 is available today. Resource Quota Rightsizing launches as an Enterprise only feature for the time being, similar to GPU optimization released in mid-2025.

To get started, install or upgrade IBM Kubecost, then review the documentation to learn how to configure these controls for your team.