AWS Underutilized Redshift Cluster

Rule Description

Rule Code: AWS-RS-01

Identify any Amazon Redshift clusters that appear to be underutilized and downsize them.

By default, an AWS Redshift cluster is considered "underutilized" when matches the criterias:

  • The average CPU utilization has been less than 60% for the last 7 days
  • The total number of ReadIOPS and WriteIOPS registered per day for the last 7 days has been less than 100 on average.

Audit / Verification

Step 01: Sign in to the AWS Management Console.

AWS Console login

Step 02: Navigate to Redshift dashboard. Under Redshift Dashboard, click Clusters.

Step 03: Select the Redshift cluster that you need to check, then click on its identifier link, listed in the Cluster column.

Step 04: Navigate Performance tab and clicking on Show Monitoring button, verify the Redshift cluster CPU Utilization, Read operations, Write operation usage graph:

  • Verify the cluster CPU usage for the last 7 days. If the average usage (percent) has been less than 60%, e.g.
  • Verify the total number of Read operations per second recorded in the last 7 days. If the total number of ReadIOPS has been less than 100, e.g
  • Verify the total number of Write operations per second recorded in the last 7 days. If the total number of WriteIOPS has been less than 100, e.g.

Step 05: Repeat steps no. 4 to verify the CPU, ReadIOPS and WriteIOPS metrics usage data recorded within the selected time frame (7 days) for the rest of the Redshift clusters available in the current region.

Step 06: Switch to the other AWS regions and follow the same above audit process.