What is a recommended practice to reap the most benefit from RI and CUD management?

• A. To maximize number of purchases
• B. To focus teams on reducing usage rather than worrying about rates
• C. To minimize communications
• D. To diversify across all regions

Answer: (B)

Maximizing savings from Reserved Instances (RIs) and Committed Use Discounts (CUDs) comes from aligning commitments with actual, steady-state usage by eliminating waste. The most effective practice is to drive down unnecessary consumption and rightsize workloads so that the baseline usage is stable and predictable. When teams focus on reducing waste—shutting down idle resources, resizing instances to fit demand, and consolidating or migrating to cost-efficient options—the committed capacity is used more fully, making the discounts from RIs and CUDs translate into real dollars saved.

Chasing more purchases without addressing waste can lock in unused capacity and raise costs, minimizing communications won’t directly improve spend efficiency, and diversifying across many regions can add complexity without improving the leverage you gain from commitments.