Which practice helps prevent resource waste when demand drops?

• A. Manual scaling only
• B. Right-sizing resources and autoscaling
• C. Keeping all resources on always
• D. Over-provisioning

Answer: (B)

When demand drops, the goal is to keep only what you need and shed the excess. Right-sizing resources means choosing the appropriate instance types, sizes, and counts to match the current workload, avoiding paying for idle capacity. Autoscaling adds dynamic responsiveness by automatically reducing capacity when utilization falls below thresholds and increasing it when demand rises. Used together, they prevent resource waste by trimming excess while staying ready to scale back up if usage returns, and by maintaining performance through sensible minimum capacity and health checks. Relying on manual scaling can be slow to react, keeping everything on always wastes resources, and over-provisioning intentionally allocates more than needed.