Startup Idea: Startup Idea for Unused Workload Management in Cloud Services

Startup idea to develop a solution that identifies and handles unused or underused workloads in self-service deployments of an internal cloud environment. This solution should differentiate between user and daemon logins, handle usage generated by backups and other background processes, and potentially integrate with existing orchestration and monitoring tools.

I work in IT and face challenges managing infrastructure usage. We have built automation to support self-serve deployment of workloads in an internal cloud environment. Demand has increased nearly 200% since self-service became available. However, utilization for many workloads is low. We need to reduce waste by decommissioning workloads which are no longer in use but we don't have a method to determine this. Tracking system CPU and RAM usage or storage IO seems reasonable but backups and other background processes can generate usage. Tracking user logins seems like a good idea but service daemons also login and differentiating between user and daemon logins in insurmountable. Once we begin using external cloud offerings, the cost of continuing to run unused workloads will be even more expensive. Some cloud orchestration and monitoring tools may help, especially around containers but even they are limited to scaling workloads only down to a minimum size. They do not identify unused containers.

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